


Nero

by thewingedoctopus



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Asylum
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-24 13:31:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4921459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewingedoctopus/pseuds/thewingedoctopus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Demonology Bananun AU inspired by The Conjuring. - "I've seen things, bizarre things," she said softly. "And she has too. And perhaps she's touched them. And perhaps they never really left." - Five parts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Headcanoned with and beta-ed by Grace.  
> Music to listen to: Nero - Two Steps from Hell  
> (There's a hidden guest in the first chapter, can you guess?)

“One quote, Mary, please. That’s all I’m asking of you.”

The blonde across from her shrugged lightly as she continued to drink her coffee, foot swaying beneath the linoleum table, and the brunette bit back a groan, watching her from between her fingers as her shoulders slumped. 

The younger girl finally, slowly, pulled her mug away to place it on her napkin with a light grimace, licking her bottom lip. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you. It was an easy one.”

The woman chewed at the end of her thumbnail, pen tapping on the table. “One quote,” she coaxed. “That’s it.” The blonde’s eyebrows raised and she gestured with her shoulders, giving a noncommittal grunt that had her companion scowling back. The brunette’s black eyes trailed to the ceiling and swam there as she slid forward in her chair. She blinked, eyes narrowed. “An ‘easy one’, you said?”

“This time round, yes.”

“I can use that,” the woman murmured. “I’ll tweak it, give it some pop so that it stands out.” She glanced down. “You’ve never minded me tweaking.”

“Never have,” Mary replied. 

The brunette gave a click of her tongue as she sat back up, sliding her pen into her notebook’s spirals. “You’re not helping me any, you know that?”

Mary smiled as she raised her cup to her lips. “You’re not my project, Lana,” the girl said. “I’m yours.”

Lana sneered back. “And I’m starting to think this was a bad idea. Project or not.”

The blonde shrugged. “I told you it wouldn’t be easy. It’s hard to explain, to understand, and to explain so that others can understand themselves.” The brunette glanced sharply at her, brows furrowed. “Though you’re doing amazingly well,” she added. “But it’s not easy. Nor is it easy finding people willing to read this sort of content. And I told you that too when we started. I told you to expect a lack of views.”

“It’s not easy when my interviewee won’t let herself be interviewed,” the woman replied. “If only my Aryan songstress would sing.” She waved her notepad vaguely. “And I have readers.”

“Outside of the church?”

“The fanatic.”

Mary’s eyebrow raised but she smiled when Lana did, but it quickly turned into a grimace when she drank again. She hissed as she placed her mug down, reaching for her napkin. “God, Lana, your coffee.”

“What?”

“It’s horrendous. Christ.”

“Watch yourself,” Lana hummed. “And I told you to drink tea. Why do you think I do?”

“Why do I keep asking you to make anything is the real question,” Mary grouched. She stood and crossed to the sink, pouring the black out of her mug. “Here I thought you’d try a little.”

“For you?”

Mary glanced back, blue eyes bright beneath her light scowl, and Lana shrugged. 

“That’s me trying.”

“God help us all.”

“Is that what the apostles said when Jesus turned water into wine?”

The blonde snorted lightly. “No. They weren’t afraid of his cooking.” She turned to lean on the counter, drying her hands with a rag. “I’ve been summoned to Louisiana.”

“Summoned,” Lana echoed, looking away. “Is it urgent?”

“Timothy says there’s a pregnant woman involved. I’d like to be there Monday.”

The brunette stood, pulling her jacket off the back of her chair. “I’ll have this written for Sunday. Will you want to see it?”

“Your project, not mine,” Mary replied. She narrowed her eyes gently, watching Lana. “Are you up for this?”

“You can’t drive,” the brunette said. “Do I have a choice?”

OOOoooOOO

Lana winced as a manila folder landed at her side to lay on the passenger seat and she glanced into the rearview mirror as Mary stretched in the back of the car, rubbing at her eyes. She looked back to the road and reached over to straighten the files. 

“It seems like a simple poltergeist,” the blonde spoke. “It’s textbook.” Lana laughed, but it was dark. “We’ll be out by tomorrow.”

“That’s what you said about our fourth case,” the brunette said lowly. She met Mary’s blue eyes in the mirror, holding her gaze. “Wasn’t it?” 

A smile graced the blonde’s face and she nodded. “Take a left here.” Lana pulled on the steering wheel and they traveled down a neighborhood road, large trees on either side hanging above them and providing a dark shade. The brunette leaned forward in her seat to watch the passing houses, black eyes narrowed. “It’s a white mansion,” Mary said.

“They’re all white.”

“You’ll know it when you see it.”

Lana had begun to bite back when she came to a slow stop before a pair of metal gates, closed tightly and the plaque on the side dirtied. It was an old colonial, like all the others in the district, but when she glanced back at Mary the blonde nodded and began to leave the car, fingers tight around her rosary. 

Lana fetched her notebook from the glove box, and after a moment of hesitation, grabbed her rosary too. A gift of the girl’s. 

“You didn’t tell me this was a school,” the brunette called. Her scowl returned when the blonde didn’t answer and she stepped forward to be flush with the girl’s back. “Is this safe?”

“Are you worried?” Mary didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ve got control.” She stiffened when Lana breathed against her ear.

“I know.”

The gates opened slowly without either of their touches, hinges creaking as they stepped through and closing behind them silently, Mary watching dubiously and with an eyebrow raised. 

It was a two leveled house, columns holding the patio and the balconies traveled through by windows. Most were open to let the Louisiana heat pass through, creating a breeze through the mansion, and Lana found herself wishing to be in the middle of that hurricane, though tropical storms were nothing to make fun of in the ethereal city of New Orleans.

It was a young, well-dressed, man that opened the front door, his hands hidden behind his back and beneath his coat, against his ribs. He let them in with a deep nod of his head and Mary waltzed in, light blue dress swishing against her knees, Lana awkwardly hot in her own gray pants, her vest. 

They were led to a living room, its ceilings high and a grand piano in the corner, the candles glowing and throwing shadows on the paintings’ faces. A blonde was seated in the loveseat, facing the fireplace and away from them, and at the man’s quiet rap on the door she turned her head to watch them over the back of her couch, hazel eyes showing. Her eyebrows raised and she took a drag from her cigarette before leaning forward to tap the ashes off on a tray they couldn’t see. 

She stood and rounded the chair, taking the time to smooth out the wrinkles on her shirt her protruding belly had produced, and she took another drag, the smoke swirling above her. 

“Sister Mary McKee, of Boston,” the younger blonde said, reaching forward. She shook the woman’s hand easily, handshake strong compared to how limp it would have been months before. 

“Fiona Goode.” Words hung off of the woman’s tongue but she bit them back, instead giving them a tight smile. Her hazel eyes traveled to a black gaze.

“Lana Winters, Miss McKee’s journalist.”

“Journalist!” Goode grinned. “My goodness, what a title.”

Lana’s scowl deepened. “Should you be smoking?” The woman sneered but she didn’t flinch when the man took a few steps forward and pulled the cigarette out of her mouth, breaking the tube in between yellowed fingers. 

She swept her hand out. “Would you take a seat?”

Mary removed a pillow from underneath her as she sat down on the couch. Lana didn’t move. “Father Timothy said this was urgent.”

“I run a school,” Fiona replied. “Wouldn’t you say this is urgent?” 

Mary shifted in her seat. “Children are important, yes.”

“Would you like a drink?”

Lana turned, Mary following her movement, and the man stared back, gaze shifting between the two.

“Something to drink?” he asked again, voice harrowingly deep.

“Water, if you have some. It’s hot,” the brunette said. “Thank you.” 

“The usual for me, Spalding,” Fiona called. She turned her attention back to her visitors as she sat, fingers noticeably closing around a missing cigarette.

“How far along are you?” 

“Seven months this boy’s been in here,” the woman sighed. She reached for her pack. “He’s driving me insane, kicking all the time.” 

“Boy?” Mary echoed. “How can you be sure?”

“Royal blood can only hope it is.” If she noticed Lana’s grimace, she said nothing. “What can you do about my little problem?” She held her hand out and Spalding placed a tumbler in the flat of her palm. Lana took the glass of water that was handed to her and Mary ignored her when she gestured to ask if she wanted to drink. 

“I can do my best,” the younger blonde replied.

“Your best? That won’t be good enough. I need it gone, whatever it is.”

“I read the report,” Mary continued. “Strange music playing, fires in your greenhouse, clothes torn out of closets.”

“I didn’t consider it out of the ordinary at first,” Fiona interrupted. “I’m used to that sort of thing. But when a voice starts calling your name…”

“Then you call the right authorities,” the nun finished for her. “I’m glad you did.” She turned to Lana and the brunette took her pen out of her pocket, clicking it as she opened her notebook to a new page. “If you don’t mind, we’ll stay a few hours to assess your newest resident.”

“The girls are out for the day, take as long as you want.” The woman glanced at the grandfather clock. “It’ll start wreaking havoc soon, anyway.”

“It likes a specific time?”

“7:48 in the evening, on the dot.” Fiona stood, though not as fast as she would have liked, and she grimaced as she placed her glass down. “I’ll be back around eleven, you’ve got free reign. Don’t mind Myrtle.”

Lana didn’t have time to ask who Myrtle was, the young woman gone in a swirl of black shawls and heels entirely too tall for how pregnant she was. She frowned after her but Mary placed her hand around her elbow and she relaxed, looking into soft blue eyes. 

“I’m not sure I like her,” she admitted.

“Perhaps only because you’re so alike,” Mary hummed. She turned away, gaze raking over the room. 

“Excuse me?” Lana asked. “I don’t think so.”

“Headstrong.”

The brunette shook her head but didn’t reply, instead following the younger woman around the couch. Her own eyes raised to the walls and its paintings, the ceiling. “What’s it feel like?”

“It feels lived in.”

Lana’s black gaze met a golden one and she nodded before jotting her words down. “Palpable?”

“More like a whisper,” Mary murmured back. She raised her fingers into the air as she continued to walk. “Like a lyric.”

“James Dean, is that you?”

The blonde blew air out of her nose and Lana turned away. She walked to the nearest painting, yet another blonde, this one platinum, and gazed into her blue eyes, eyelashes heavily painted. She looked young, surely younger than whenever she’d died. The brunette could only think these were funeral portraits. 

She turned and yelped, notebook clattering to the floor and hand jumping to her heart. “Jesus Christ.”

“I’m sorry, did I startle you?”

“Forgive me,” she muttered. “I try not to say the lord’s name in vain.” She bent down to pick up her fallen pad. Mary was gone. “I’m here with-”

“I know,” the woman said, eyes sharp behind her cat eye glasses. “Myrtle Snow.”

“Lana Winters,” the brunette answered. She jotted the name down as the woman watched. “Are you a student?” 

“I wish I was still that young, to feel my bones fly free.” She paused. “You’ve met our Supreme,” the young redhead sniffed. “Surely she said she was headmistress.”

Lana’s pen tapped against her thigh. “Is she not?”

“Hell above, no.” Myrtle stood a little taller. “I am.”

“Are you simply a girl’s school?” the brunette asked. “Ms. Goode didn’t seem much moved by the idea of a potential demonic entity in her house.”

“My house,” the woman corrected. “Only a girl’s school, Ms. Winters. What else could we possibly be?” she asked, narrowing her gaze. “Only a prestigious school.”

Lana smiled. “Nice shoes, Ms. Snow.”

“Oh, thank you!” The redhead glanced down at her own pumps, lifting a heel to look back at it, but when she glanced up Lana had already moved away and retreated into the hallway after her companion, writing all the while.

She traced to the kitchen, finding the young blonde looking out the window above the sink, scowling lightly.

“Please don’t leave me alone again, they give me the heebie jeebies, all of them,” Lana said. “The headmistress is in the living room if you want to speak to her.”

“I don’t need to.”

The brunette looked up, pen halting as her eyebrows raised. “Oh?”

“It’s not here,” the girl snapped.

Her hands lowered. “Oh.”

“It’s gone. The feeling was lasting, like perfume,” Mary continued, softening. “But it didn’t stay.”

“Then where did it go?” Lana shifted her weight. “Miss Goode said 7:48, maybe-”

“No, Lana, no matter that it has a time it likes to exploit, I would feel its presence. It’s not here.”

The brunette shrugged, shoulders raising to her ears as she agreed. Mary sighed and Lana thought she heard an apology in between two sweeps of a blue gaze, but she didn’t mention it. 

“Do you want to get dinner? We have a while till Ms. Goode comes back.” She held out her hand and Mary linked her arm with hers, elbow against elbow. “I hope you like spicy food,” she teased. The girl’s button nose crinkled, blue eyes twinkling, and she laughed. 

They were early coming back, Mary’s head on Lana’s shoulder as they walked through the school’s gates, but she righted herself before reaching the patio stairs, tugging her dress’s hem down. Spalding was quick in saying Fiona had not come back, and Myrtle had snorted from the couch, following it with a scoff. The upper levels creaked with footsteps, the girls having come home. Lana took a seat on the couch and Mary followed.

It was midnight by the time Fiona waltzed in, draping her fur coat over Spalding’s outstretched arm as she looked over her visitors with bright hazel eyes. She peeled off her night black gloves, seemingly amused as Mary breathed out. 

“Find anything, Miss McKee?” She sat herself down and Spalding placed a tumbler at her elbow. 

“Something,” the younger blonde said. “How was your night?”

“Perfectly fine,” Fiona replied smoothly, eyeing Lana. “Is it a scheming spirit? A vengeful phantom?”

“Nothing of the sort, Ms. Goode.” 

“A sprite then, if not a poltergeist.” the woman asked flippantly. 

Mary shook her head. “Not a sprite, or a poltergeist. But rather something that lives here peacefully until its keeper manifests.”

“A follower of Bes,” Lana interjected. 

“A follower of Bes,” Fiona repeated.

“An entity that isn’t possessive, if you will, in the physical sense of the term,” Mary continued. “They latch onto souls like demons do, but in a protective way and most often for a lifetime. They’re nicer, more malleable, than other beings. It isn’t too big of a threat.” The blonde looked to the ceiling. “They’re of the Egyptian sort, but some say they’re fallen angels, living in hell.”

“It’s attached to me, then?” 

“No.”

“You said nothing happened while I was gone,” Fiona replied, flushing angrily.

Mary glanced back at her, blue eyes swirling with the fire’s gold. “It’s not attached to you, Ms. Goode.  It’s attached to your child.”

“He’s not born.”

“Souls are souls from their conception on.”

“Fucking Catholics,” Fiona muttered, tapping the base of her cigarette. 

“Are you upset your ego isn’t being flattered?” Lana asked forcefully.

“Get rid of it, Miss McKee, I don’t want any demons around me or my boy. Threat or not.”

Mary shifted. “I can’t.”

“Then why the hell are you here?”

“Protector demons aren’t exorcisable, not fully,” the younger blonde replied, crossing her arms over her chest. “They only leave for a period of time before coming back. They’re too attached to this world.”

“How long?”

“Till they come back? It depends on the creature, it depends on the degree of attachment,” Mary said. “Some months, some years. Your child isn’t old enough yet for the demon to have made a true, stable, connection, but it will come back. I can do all I want, but know this isn’t a permanent solution.”

“It’s not harmful? This demon?”

“Not usually.”

Fiona watched her but finally grimaced, waving her arm vaguely. “Just get rid of it. I’ll worry about it when it comes back.”

“She,” Mary replied softly.

“And have Myrtle take care of the bill, she’s our Guardian of Veracity in the Vernacular and our Keeper of Finances.”

OOOoooOOO

“I wanted to apologize.”

The brunette paused, hand outstretched and the girl’s luggage in hand, Robichaux’s and the exorcism at her back. She took a moment to close the car’s trunk. “Why?”

The blonde shrugged, looking so small, and Lana opened the back door for her. “For acting so careless. For being, not myself.” She slid into the seat. “For being someone else in there. For speaking so out of turn with both you and that woman.” She let the door close in on her and she leaned back onto the leather, head tilted up to the ceiling while the brunette climbed into the front seat.

Lana looked into the rearview mirror, knuckles white on the steering wheel as she breathed out. “Are you alright?”

Mary lowered her head, her blue eyes teary, and she nodded pitifully before rubbing at her nose. “I’m fine, I’m sorry. This takes a lot out of me, being around them, no matter that they’re not fearful.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s getting stronger, Lana. I’m afraid it is.”

“That’s okay too.”

“Am I different?” Mary asked softly.

“Only in the sense that you speak your mind more often,” Lana laughed lightly, but it fell on deaf ears, Mary’s head bowed. She turned in her seat and reached for the girl’s hand. “There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re doing great.” She bit her lower lip, worrying at the torn skin. “You’re a little snarky, a little careless, and a little courageous in an off-handed way, but you’re still you. I can still see you in there. You’re you.”

“Am I?” the blonde repeated. “I don’t feel like I am. This courage feels like death creeping into my veins, pushing out my-” she blew air out. “Pushing me out. We both know I’m, I’m-”

“Apologetic?” 

“If you want to call it that.”

Lana took a moment to speak. “We’ll find someone, I promised you that. And I’m still promising you that. It’ll get done.” She tilted her head to the side. “You know I’d tell you if you started growing horns.” The girl laughed dejectedly as she shook her head and Lana grinned, tugging her hand up to press a kiss to the back of it.

“Lana?”

“Mary.”

“Can I sit up in the front with you tonight?”

She’d fallen asleep with her head on the brunette’s shoulder and Lana had almost wanted to let them sleep in the car, the night warm enough, but in the end she shook the blonde awake and coaxed her out of the automobile and into their motel room. She fell onto the bed immediately, foregoing undressing but nudging off her heels and she bunched up the pillow beneath her, looking up the brunette as she placed their luggage by the door, checked the bathroom.

“Thank you, Lana. For staying.”

Black eyes washed over her. “Don’t.”

Mary nodded, almost to herself, as she dug her nose into her elbow. “You’re a walking sin, you know that?” she asked, voice muffled as her eyes closed and her breathing evened out. She opened them momentarily, golden hues swirling. “It’s like I’m feeding off of you.”

“I know, Mary, I know.” She made her way to the mattress and sat on its side gingerly, fingers pushing blonde strands behind small ears. 

The girl yawned. “Will you have enough to write an article?”

“Plenty.”

She fell asleep with a satisfied smile, curled up on the bed, and Lana took the time to place a blanket around her waist before grabbing her own from her backpack and making herself comfortable in the room’s armchair, knees tucked beneath her. She clicked the little lamp at her side on and fished her notebook out, her pen too. 

As Mary slept on, little noises torn out of her throat as she dreamed, Lana wrote while she could, too tired to sleep. When the blonde shifted too hard she reached forward and tucked her back in, but the girl pushed her covers off anyway, and Lana knew it was useless to try again. She threw her notebook to the ground, pen following.

And slept until dawn.

She woke with baby blue eyes watching her from the bed’s side, the blonde sitting up and with her hands trapped between her thighs, and she shifted upright, ignoring the pain in her neck.

“What’s wrong?”

Mary shook her head, eyes welling up with tears, and she looked away. “I want to go home. I want to pray. I need to pray. I know I said we’d visit around but I need to, uh, go back to church. I can’t do this here.”

Lana nodded slowly. “Okay. Okay, let’s go home.”

“I don’t like it here,” the blonde continued. “There’s too many spirits.” She rubbed at her forehead with the palm of her hand. She took Lana’s hand to help her stand up and she all but crawled out of the room, the brunette in tow with their luggage. 

She curled up in the backseat on their way back to the northeast, the brunette failing to rise her out of the car when she stopped to take a breather to remove the kinks from her back, stretching to the sky. For an odd hour Mary sat at her side, staring out the passing scenery, but she shifted back behind at a red light outside Virginia Beach, features as green as the foamy sea. 

“We’re almost there, Mary,” Lana murmured outside New York. She reached up to rub at the corner of her eye. “Just a few more hours. Can you give me that?”

“You can’t drive any faster, can you?” the girl whispered back. “How I wish you could.”

Lana pulled her gaze away from the rearview mirror, teeth digging into her lower lip. Her canines drew blood. 

Boston seemed to reinvigorate the blonde until she stood straight in her seat, fingers pressed to the window and her blue eyes lifted to the sky. The brunette had wanted to tell her to wait until the car had stopped moving before she jumped out but her words hadn’t left her throat that the girl was already on the sidewalk and pulling her shoes back on, previously forgotten on the automobile’s floor. Lana hurried after her, grabbing onto her before she tripped over herself, and she held her up with a hand to her elbow. 

The blonde shook her off, growling in a tone that wasn’t hers and the brunette took a step back and finally turned around to lock her car, keeping an eye on Mary.

She was almost running ahead and Lana tried her best to keep up as they walked to the little chapel through the cathedral, shoes echoing on the stone floors. She glanced back at the brunette, hurrying her along with a short wave of her hand.

“Sister Mary Eunice.”

The blonde turned mid-step, eyebrows drawn together in confusion and hurt and she glanced at Lana before fixing the man barreling down the hallway with her wide blue eyes. “Father Timothy.”

“Good,” he called, marching towards them. “You’re back.” He gave the brunette a curt nod. “Ms. Winters. How was New Orleans?”

“Smokey.”

“And Robichaux’s?”

“Clean.”

He smiled. “ Mary, may I speak with you?”

Mary shifted closer to Lana. “Now, Father?”

“There’s a family in need of your expertise, Sister.”

“I, I just got here, Father. I was going to go pray.”

“I admire your pious soul, but this is important. Kids, Mary, a family. Terrified,” he urged. “It’s not far,” he continued. “Just on the outside of Boston, in the suburbs. There’ll be plenty of time to pray for their health and happiness after.”

Mary looked away, tears threatening to spill for Lana only, and she nodded.

“You’re entirely too good,” he praised. “Come, the information is on my desk. Ms. Winters, if you’d like to come?” He turned and began walking, rosary swaying from beneath his closed fist.

Mary breathed out shakily, sobs curled up in her throat, and Lana pressed the palm of her hand to the dip in her back, forehead to the blonde’s temple.

“Why don’t you go pray? I’ll follow Timothy and get those files.”

The blonde bit the inside of her cheek, eyes darting between Lana’s black gaze and the father’s retreating figure. “Lana, I don’t know if-”

“What about your health and happiness?” The brunette shook her head. “ I’ll tell him you’re car sick. Go.”

Mary nodded quickly and, after a moment of hesitation, leaned down to press a kiss to the woman’s cheek. She retreated through a side door and Lana traced down the hallway after Timothy, catching up to him. He turned as he fit his key into his office’s lock.

“Oh, where did she go?”

“She’s gone to the bathroom, the last hour on the road made her sick,” Lana said.

Timothy’s brows knotted together. “Oh, heavens. I do hope she’s alright.”

“The suburbs, Father?”

He nodded and opened his door, letting her in after her. “Not a demonic possession, this time, or, so far.” He glanced up. “There’s something inside that house.”

“Isn’t there always.”

“Your dry sense of humor is a welcomed coat of paint here, Ms. Winters,” he praised lightly. “No wonder Miss McKee’s taken to you.”

Lana shifted her shoulders, hands intertwined before her, and she smiled. “Thank you, father.”

“And I thank you for doing what you’re doing for us and the church. You’re the only one who’d take the job, you’re a courageous young woman, Ms. Winters.” He handed her a folder. “Stronger than all the men who walked into this office.”

“That’s very kind of you, father.”

“Ambition is a strong trait,” he told her. He looked her over. “And perhaps a flaw, if taken too far.”

“I’m careful, father, as is Mary,” Lana replied softly. “We’re careful.” The lie burned through her tongue and she shifted her gaze to the files in her arms. “Family of  four?”

“A father, a mother, a child. The second child is of the father, but not his wife.” He clicked his tongue. “Such charity she upholds, taking care of a baby that is not hers.”

“Are they from a first marriage?”

Timothy looked up, a small smile on his face, and Lana grimaced back. She glanced at her watch.

“It’s a little late to run over there now, I wouldn’t want to be rude at a first meeting. Can they wait till morning?”

“No later, Ms. Winters,” he replied. “I implore you. No child should feel unwanted in their own home.”

“I know,” she said softly. “God, I know.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanoned with and beta-ed by Grace.  
> Music: Numb by Marina and the Diamonds.

Lana wasn’t allowed to room at the cathedral with the sisters and so she’d headed home and at the blonde’s insistence, had let her come too. The girl had no want to stay inside the church, shivering when the brunette had found her in the chapel, down on her knees and crying silently. Ribbons hung from her nails, and for a moment Lana had wondered who she’d clawed. but she’d only torn skin from her own forearms, the wounds bleeding onto the floor. But she had no scars, no scrapes. She’d picked herself off the floor, pushing away Lana’s help. 

The brunette had ignored the marks seared into the nearby wooden cross. 

It’d been so long since she’d been in her own apartment and she profusely apologized for the mess, but the blonde had only smiled as she’d followed her in shyly.

“Kitchen over here, though you know I can’t cook. Bathroom, and bedroom. Which you can have tonight, I’ve only got one bed,” Lana told her. “Rent’s not easy in the city.” She did a little turn on herself. “That’s it, I think.”

“It’s funny, you know?” Mary murmured. “We’ve known each other almost a year and I’ve never been here, I didn’t even know you lived in this neighborhood.”

“We’re too busy for the mundane,” the brunette teased. She glanced around. “Plus this is basically like living in a shoebox.” 

“It’s comfortable.”

Lana smiled and Mary turned away, eyes bright blue. 

“You have a nice view.”

“Which is why I pay so damn much.”

“Language,” Mary chastised lightly. 

Lana shook her head. “Tea? Coffee? I’ve got the instant sticks, I can’t mess those up.”

“I think I just want to rest, Lana.”

The brunette nodded. “Let me just get some new sheets for you.” 

“I can use yours,” Mary said softly. “I wouldn’t want to trouble you further.” She glanced up. “And maybe I want to roll around in your sweat.”

Lana breathed in, black eyes tearing from golden ones. “I’ll get some sheets.” 

“Thank you,” the blonde murmured back. 

Lana wrote while Mary slept in the next room. She climbed up on her kitchen counter, the meager space there was, and she hid in the corner of the room with her notebook on her lap, scribbling into it. The Robichaux case was taking form, she had her introduction, her characters. Characters she wasn’t sure now she’d really met, between the Goode woman and her redheaded partner. She circled the word ‘peculiar’ by their names, then underlined it. Something to stress. 

The spirit itself had been easy. It’d held onto the child for a moment, almost as if begging, as Bes’s lovers usually did. But it’d given up, Mary’s voice soothingly sweet though the Latin was nothing but threats, golden eyes blazing. It was a blue gaze that had told the creature it’d be alright. Lana had felt her heart constrict then, the girl’s compassion shining through her torture. 

Mary had told her the same thing the first time they’d met. 

Lana’d been late that cloudy day, Father Timothy’s directions to the home more than vague, her purpose to the afternoon still truly unexplained. Though she hadn’t cared, she was a writer and the church would pay her. She’d write The Even Newer Testament if it meant she could eat, no matter the heresy.

The front door had been left open and she’d walked in carefully, the blonde at the end of the hallway looking up, surprised and perhaps scared. Names had been exchanged and she’d relaxed.

And Lana had seen her first exorcism. 

A young boy, eleven or twelve, blood pouring out his mouth and screaming obscenities that had made Lana flush a whole set of colors. Her whole past divulged in a matter of minutes. 

She was shaking when it was over, no more and no less than the young nun, and Mary had uttered those words, hand to her shoulder.

“It’ll be alright.” 

She’d been so sure of herself, even with tears streaming down her own face and her knees knocking together in fright. The brunette had known from that moment that the girl was weak, naive, but so undoubtedly strong in her belief of God and men. Of experiences. It had surprised her, awed her into a lingering silence she wasn’t able to shake off that night. 

She’d signed the father’s contract the next morning, Mary’s faith coursing through her veins.

But now Lana wasn’t so sure anything was alright. Or would be. 

Her pen ran but no ink came forth, words trailing off, and she bit at the inside of her cheek. She hadn’t bought any refills before New Orleans. She glanced towards her room; Mary seemed to be sleeping and so she climbed down onto her linoleum floor, slipping into her shoes. 

The day was entirely colder than their stay in the south had been and her scarf was woolen, green like the dress Mary had been wearing the day she bought it. Then she’d been laughing carelessly, blue eyes bright and breath clouding in front of her as Lana had held the garment up to her, comparing the hues. 

When she came back to her apartment the girl was sitting where she’d been, on the counter and with her gaze turned outside. She didn’t shift when Lana closed the door. 

“I went out. You were asleep so I figured I could,” the brunette started. She shoved her scarf into the tiny space she called her closet. “I got breakfast. Or, dinner. Breakfast for dinner. I went to the bakery.”

“A woman after my own heart.” Mary looked to her, smiling, and Lana breathed out. “Pain au chocolat?” she asked, hope tainting her features.

“What else? And I’ve got chocolate bars in the cupboards,” Lana confided. “You can make it an extra chocolate pain au chocolat.” The blonde giggled lightly, hiding in her shoulder, and Lana shook her head. “You know my accent is horrid.”

“I like it.”

The brunette smiled as she placed her purse on the counter. “Come on, hop off. I’ll get some plates out.” Her eyebrows raised and she turned to slip her coat off. “If my mom were here she’d ask if Merlot went well with what we’re gonna have.”

“Lana?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t have a kitchen table.”

The woman turned back around, flushing. “Oh, uh, no. I don’t. Usually I eat on the counter, when I’m alone. There’s enough space for that. I have the floor to offer you.”

“Like children,” Mary said, smiling. She slid off the counter and Lana moved past her to grab two plates, two glasses. The chocolate. 

They sat with their backs to the wall, Lana’s head tilted back and her knee up to her chest while Mary crossed her legs at her ankles, tugging her skirt down her thighs self-consciously. She ate slower than the brunette, almost thoughtful as she chewed. She picked at her dinner with her thumb and forefinger and brushed crumbs from her knees periodically, and finally she let her head fall to Lana’s shoulder, sighing. Lana didn’t shift, choosing instead to raise her hand and brush her hair out of the girl’s way. 

Mary burrowed a little further. “What did Timothy say.”

“It’s a house case.”

“Oh.”

“We have to be there in the morning, imperatively.”

The girl’s frown deepened.

“Are you,” Lana paused. “Do you think you’re strong enough?” 

“I’m as strong as I can be,” the blonde muttered. “I’ll only get weaker as the days pass. As the days have passed.” She closed her eyes when Lana pressed a kiss in her hair. The brunette’s fingers passed through sunshine kissed strands and she placed her cheek to the girl’s head. 

“You’re very strong still,” she whispered.

“I wish I could believe you.” Mary glanced up. She began stammering. “You’ll tell me if you need to sleep, right? I know I slept earlier and I’m not tired now but I don’t want to impede on your rest whatsoever. This is your home after all and-” Lana silenced her, intertwining their fingers.

“I’m fine right here, if you are.”

The blonde nodded lowly. She looked down to their hands. “Thank you.” Sun shone in her golden eyes, her scowl light. “I wish I could say it was your sins that fueled you on now. Fueled you to help.”

Lana breathed out. “You can’t?”

“God touched your heart when it comes to her. Me. Your ulterior motives are…” she trailed off.

“I don’t have any ulterior motives. She knows that.”

Mary scowled fully. “As do I,” she snapped. And she softened. “As do I.”

It was a rude morning to Lana, her eyes narrowed against the rising sun and her mouth turned down in a grimace, the instant coffee almost as disgusting as what she’d make herself. Mary had declined and Lana watched her from the counter as she prayed to the morning light, down on her knees and rosary swinging from her fists against her chest. An action she still had some peace for. 

The blonde held onto a map of Boston and its surroundings, seated in the front seat beside Lana as she studied it with a light frown. 

“There should be a dirt road.” 

“That’s all there is around here,” Lana sighed. “We’ve just passed Dullard Street, how far are we now?”

“That was it.”

The brunette glanced at her, smiling wryly, and paused on the road to make a u-turn, tires raising dust behind them. She took the right that had previously been a left, fingers tapping against the wheel. 

“Number twenty-two,” Mary informed her. “Evens on the right,” she added, looking outside. 

“Twenty-two Dullard Street. How dull.”

The blonde shook her head, a smile tugging at her lips. “Not everyone can live in downtown Boston.”

“I don’t either,” Lana sighed. “But how I wish I did.”

Mary glanced at her curiously. “Really?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

The girl shrugged. “I like your place.”

Lana’s eyebrow quirked. “Your vow of poverty, Miss McKee?”

“I’d feel out of place, I think. With the lavish lifestyle they keep there.”

“I’d swim in it,” the brunette said, suddenly serious. Mary shifted beside her. “I’d want it. I’d want the recognition for all the shit I’d gone through to get there. I have gone through.” She looked to her passenger. “Don’t you want to be recognized for what you’ve done? For what you’re doing?”

The blonde looked back out the window. “Helping people is recognition enough.”

“You have that. Helping people. I’m just a writer. And I won’t be recognized for anything but my writing, people gushing over my words and my prose. And that’s hard. Breaking through with words. It’ll take me years, or a miracle. A horrifying miracle. I think I’ll have earned my place when I get there, and when I do I’m going to enjoy it.”

“You help me plenty, Lana,” Mary offered softly. 

Lana paused, clicking her tongue. She glanced into the rearview mirror, gaze narrowed. “Sorry.”

“Whatever for?”

“For being so selfish. It’s not very catholic of me. And it’s just a place anyway, isn’t it? Downtown?” She laughed lightly, smile returning as she flushed. “Father Timothy talked of ambition, you know?”

“A great trait and a terrible flaw.”

“As he said.” Lana braked and they came to a slow stop, dust overtaking their windows. “I think this is it.”

A solitary mailbox rose out of the ground feet from the hood of the car, a '22’ painted on its side, and Mary looked over the green box, its little red flag lying flat on its side. There was no house, but a road trailing off into the distance, a cottage at the end if she squinted hard enough.

“Do you feel up to some exercise?” the brunette asked. 

“Your heels are taller than mine.”

Lana grinned and reached over into the glove box, fetching her notes as Mary moved back to give her space. “I’m only trying to keep up with you.” The blonde shook her head, smile wide, before she climbed out of the car and closed the door behind herself. She waited for Lana to join her at her side before beginning to walk, rosary maddeningly swinging from her fist. The brunette had hers deep in her pocket. 

“It’s a mom, a dad, and two kids,” Lana finally said. 

“Why is it always children?” Mary asked softly. The brunette shook her head, throat tight as she let the blonde overtake her. She wanted to speak of innocence, of open hearts, but the girl’s rigid bones stopped her. “Is everyone safe?”

“So far,” the brunette answered. “They’re just scared out of their minds.”

“As anybody would be.”

 _Are you?_ Lana implored. _Are you?_

Mary glanced at her, suddenly weak-kneed, and her fingers intertwined before her. They were shaking but in her own grasp stilled momentarily. “Would you mind knocking?”

The brunette smiled, breathing out, and she nodded. “Of course. I’ve got it.” 

The blonde murmured her gratitude, grasping for her own composure as her fingernails raked along the brunette’s elbow. She pulled away to face the cottage, beads sifting through her fingers. 

Lana knocked on the door and stepped back, glancing over her shoulder to look at Mary, her gaze narrowed but not unkindly. She only turned back when the door creaked opened and she flashed her best smile. Her TV smile. But there was no one there. She frowned momentarily, her head cocking to the side, and her black eyes traveled down the doorway until she met a hazel gaze.

A child stared back, chestnut hair falling down into his eyes in bangs that hadn’t been cut professionally. He threw his head back and his hair shifted back behind his ears.

“Hi,” she tried. 

“Hi.”

“My name’s Lana,” she continued.

“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” he replied.

Lana nodded. “And I suppose that makes sense. Is your father home?” When the boy only stared back, she smiled lightly, teasingly. “Just nod yes or no, then.” He grinned and nodded before stepping back into his home and leaving her at the door, his feet padding on the wood beneath him. Mary stifled a laugh behind her and she shook her head, lips tugging up. 

A man came into view, an older version of the child, and he watched them for a moment as he dried his fingers on a towel. He finally placed it into his back pocket and held out his hand. 

“Kit Walker.”

“Lana Winters.”

“You’re the,” He paused and glanced back over his shoulder, but the child was gone. “You’re the exorcist.”

“Sister Mary McKee-” Lana turned and motioned to the blonde. “Is the woman you’re looking for.”

The man nodded. “Sister. It’s a pleasure.”

“It’s all mine, Mr. Walker,” she replied. 

“Won’t you come in?”

Lana let the blonde step in front of her, the girl shy though she towered above both the reporter and the home owner. She waved lightly at the boy who’d, after all, hidden into the couch cushions. The girl next to him waved back instead. She wasn’t older than the child, her eyes the same color as his, her nose just as upturned. They looked like his father, and from behind Mary Lana understood what Father Timothy had meant. The girl had dark skin, a contrast to the boy’s white tone. Mary’s frown wavered but she said nothing, though her gaze shone gold with unshed potential and scathing remarks. 

“You want some coffee? Something to eat? Julia here baked cookies this mornin’.” 

She turned back, blue eyes wavering. “Thank you, you’re very kind.”

Kit moved to the counter and reached for a tin box. “You kiddin’? It’s the least I can do for you showin’ up this quick.” He glanced sideways. “Hey, kids, ain’t there a sand castle you wanted to finish out in the box?”

“Can we have a cookie too?”

“One. Don’t spoil your dinner or your mother’ll get me.”

The two slid off the couch and reached into the tin, though the boy was less hasty in leaving the house, gaze heavy and trained on his father. But he closed the front door behind him with some finality. 

“Are they safe?” Kit blurted.

“Mr. Walker?”

“My kids. Are they safe, Sister.”

Mary smiled reassuringly and he softened.

“Sorry, I’m on edge about this, you know?”

“There’s no need for you to apologize.” The blonde took the treat offered to her and passed it to Lana. “Father Timothy wasn’t very explicit in his details, could you explain to me what’s going on?”

“Didn’t have time, did he?” Kit said. “It’s pretty fucked up.” He glanced up. 

“Sorry.”

“No worries.”

“I’ve said worse,” Lana murmured from behind her baked good. 

“And we’ve seen enough to be able to handle this,” the blonde added. “Everything’ll be alright, Mr. Walker.”

“You sound extremely sure of yourselves,” he said dubiously.

“We’ve done this long enough,” Mary replied, smiling. “Explain?”

He nodded and bit into his own cookie, crumbs falling to the countertop. “We’re talkin’ some kinda, demonic ghost.” He shook his head. “I’ve seen the movies.” Mary refrained from correcting him. “It won’t let us sleep, whatever it is. It smacks walls and turns lights on and off and it’s grabbed at my girl more than once, tugging her out of bed. She’s got bruises all over. I’m afraid it won’t just be bruises in the near future.”

“And your son?”

“He hasn’t been touched yet.” Kit frowned. “Does that mean anythin’?”

“I can’t say,” Mary replied. “Your daughter, she’s seen this entity?”

“She says she has, yeah.”

“Has she described it?”

He shook his head. “She’s too scared.”

“We’ll have to talk to her, Mr. Walker,” Lana said softly. “If you don’t mind I’ll simply take a few minutes with her later today.”

He looked between the two women and finally acquiesced. “If it helps.” He leaned back on the counter. 

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Mary asked.

“Yeah it, uh, likes to scream? It shrieks. But I have no idea what it’s sayin’. The first few nights I just told my kids it was an owl or somethin’ but then it started calling my name. They didn’t take that super well.”

“Name recognition,” the blonde murmured. Lana glanced at her, pen tapping against her thigh. 

“Can you get rid of it?”

“'It’ is a quick term, Mr. Walker. Whatever lives here could be a multitude of creatures and entities, your symptoms are too common. There’s no straight answer I can give you until I have a good look. If you’ll let us, we’ll spend the night here to assess the situation.”

Kit nodded between them. “Yeah, yeah sure, of course. Whatever this needs.”

“Is there somewhere you can send your children for the night?” Lana asked. The man looked to her, finding her at the window and watching the two kids in the yard. 

“My wife’s mom lives in town.”

“Send them to their grandma’s, then,” the brunette said. She turned. “And you? Got anywhere to stay?”

He glanced at the blonde. “I’d like to stay.”

Mary bit the inside of her cheek, blue eyes finding black ones. “That isn’t something I’d recommend.” She wrung her fingers together. “It’s not always safe.”

“It’s never safe,” Lana corrected. 

“I’ll be careful. Please,” Kit said. “This is my family we’re talking about. I can’t stand by and do nothin’. It was already embarassin’ enough to have to call you guys, bein’ able to do jack shit myself. Sorry Sister.”

Mary implored Lana with a glance but the brunette wouldn’t meet her gaze, her own on the young man. She sighed. “Do what you will, Mr. Walker.” He expressed his gratitude with a strong handshake and went to pull her in but refrained, suddenly awkwardly shifting his weight from foot to foot. 

“You wanted to talk to Julia, right?” he asked Lana. “I’ll get Thomas out your way.”

She eyed him. “You don’t want to sit in on me speaking with her?”

“I can trust you, can’t I?”

He moved past her and into the front yard, leaving the door open, the breeze flitting through.

Lana’s shoulder bumped into Mary’s. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m tired,” the girl said softly. “But I feel physically strong. Which is ironic. Or maybe it’s an oxymoron.”

“It’s neither,” the brunette replied. “Physically?”

“Like I’m being fed.” She felt the older woman shudder against her. “But it’s not off of you today. There’s something stronger here than your sins.” She closed her eyes. “Is it a terrible thing if I say I like this surge of power?”

“As long as it doesn’t feel like touching a live wire.”

“Ms. Winters? Julia’s out by the swings.”

“Thanks.” She let her hand fall down Mary’s back. “I’ll be done soon. Be careful.” She reached up, intending to leave a kiss to the blonde’s cheek, but Kit’s gaze burned into her back and she clicked her tongue instead. Her heels clacked on the hardware floor before they padded on soft grass. 

The swing by the girl’s was empty and she sat down in it gingerly, weight dipping the leather down, her heel running grooves into the dirt. Thomas had been led inside by his father, hand in his.

“I’m Lana.”

“I’m Julia Walker. I’m in first grade.”

“A big girl, then?”

“Well I’m not a baby anymore.” The girl scrunched her nose. “I have a friend who has a baby brother. He’s really small and he can’t do anything but cry. And he’s ugly. Do you have a baby?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t.”

“It’s okay, Ms. Winters. I don’t like babies either.”

“Do you know why I’m here, Julia?”

“For the ghost.” She glanced up, frowning lightly. “Right?”

“Your father told me it bothers you. Can you tell me how?” Lana waited as Julia considered. “I’m here to help.”

“She likes to whisper in my ear.”

The brunette reached for her notebook but left it in her pocket, afraid to scare the girl off. It would be almost too adult of a reaction from her. Her hand fell back to her lap. “She?” Julia nodded softly. “Do you know what she looks like? Have you seen her?”

“She only speaks to me and touches me. I haven’t seen her. Not really. Just wisps of smokes and bright eyes.”

Lana squirmed. “Touches you?”

“Yeah, she grabs my foot and pulls. Or she ties my hair to the bed.” Julia looked down. “We had to cut off a few inches because daddy couldn’t untie me.” Lana glanced over the girl, berating herself when she realized she hadn’t noticed the handful of curls shorter than the others. “She says it’s my fault.”

The brunette glanced sharply at her. “Your fault?”

“I don’t know what she means,” Julia said quickly. “I haven’t done anything.”

“I didn’t say you did,” Lana assured her. “But think hard, you’re sure you don’t know what she means?”

“Most of the time she doesn’t speak in English ,” the girl muttered. “I have no idea.”

The woman let her hand trail to Julia’s hair, patting her curls tame. “Thank you for speaking with me. You did great.”

“I like talking. I just wish it was about something else.”

“Me too, darling.” Lana looked to the house, suddenly feeling watched, and a pair of hazel eyes stared back from behind one of the windows. “He’s a quiet one, isn’t he? A little pensive?”

Julia looked up.

“Your brother,” Lana added.

“He is thoughtful, daddy says. But he talks. Just not lately,” the girl replied. She continued to swing lightly. “His mama died.”

The brunette’s foot stopped its digging. “Oh.”

“Yeah. She just, wasn’t there to wake us up one morning. Daddy said she had an accident.” Julia glanced back over her shoulder. “We buried her out in the yard.”

“I’m sorry.”

Julia shrugged, pushing Lana’s comment away. And the brunette knew she was dealing with it, albeit silently, and that she wouldn’t talk again. She left her there, swinging in the breeze, unable to give anything more than a comforting squeeze to the girl’s shoulder. She’d only ever dealt with coming loss, not loss felt.

Kit had left his front door unlocked and Thomas ran past her when she entered, glancing back momentarily to frown at her. He disappeared to his sister’s side. 

Mary’s hands were in the air as she stood in the far hallway, her blue eyes closed and her golden head thrown back, and Kit watched from the sofa in the living room, worry in his frown, looking so much like his son. He let Lana sit at his side, moving so she could be more comfortable.

He scratched at his chin, gaze on the floor. “I hate to ask, but what’s she doin’?” he whispered.

“I don’t really know. It’s complicated,” she admitted. “Feeling for something. Lost souls is my guess.”

Kit shifted his weight, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned back on the couch. “You, uh, you follow her 'round, then? You with the church too? Like a guardian or somethin’?”

Lana glanced at him. “I’m not ordained, but yes. A guardian of some sorts. I make sure she doesn’t get into trouble.”

“That sounds like a heck of a job to be paid for.”

“It’s a perk. I’m a journalist,” she precised. “Her journalist.” He nodded but didn’t seem to understand. She didn’t continue. 

“How long you been doin’ this? You two look comfortable with each other,” he added. “But you don’t seem to really know what’s goin’ on either.”

“Maybe I simply prefer not to divulge. Maybe there’s nothing to tell.”

“Fair enough.”

“Lana?”

The brunette glanced up into a blue gaze, the noon sun throwing gold into the girl’s eyes. She excused herself to Kit in a whisper and crossed to where the blonde stood. She’d turned her back to her.

“Are you hungry? I think I’m hungry,” Mary murmured. 

“Mary?”

The girl turned her gaze on her, inquisitive. “Would you like to get lunch?”

Lana frowned but the blonde ran her nails down her hand, raking deep, squeezing tight, and she nodded. “It’s a good idea.” Mary walked towards Kit who’d stood after Lana, hands deep in his backpockets as he watched them carefully like a lost child. He was so young. 

“I have a few things to fetch and lunch to grab, but we’ll be back before sundown,” the blonde told him. “Thank you so much for your hospitality, Mr. Walker, and for you letting us into your home.”

“I called you here,” he pointed out.

“I meant the church,” Mary confessed. “I think we both know that we’re not welcome everywhere on a range of topics.” 

“I called you here, Miss McKee. You’re doin’ me one hell of a favor,” Kit repeated. “Drive safe when you come back, alright? The road can get slippery when it rains. And it looks like it might rain.” 

The girl’s back was rigid until they were far from the cottage, two pairs of childish eyes gazing them over. Lana’s fingers itched to press to her back to support her. 

“Thank you,” Mary breathed. “For letting me leave so fast. I was being suffocated. Smothered.”

“Are you alright?” Lana asked lowly. 

The blonde closed her eyes, letting the older woman guide her down the driveway. “I’m calm, Lana. That house is, so powerful. It’s being fed, it’s keeping calm. But the power is breath halting.” 

“Was it feeding you still?”

Mary glanced at her, confused.

“You said when we first walked in that you were being fed. By something else than,” Lana swallowed, “Me. It was feeding both you and the entity?”

“Did I?” the girl asked softly. “Well whatever I said, I wasn’t wrong.”

OOOoooOOO

They passed one other car that night on the dirtroad, an old, beat up pickup truck painted in scabs of blue and orange rust. And though Lana only saw a black woman in the front seat, she couldn’t help but know that her daughter and her new son lay splayed in the backseat, sleeping. 

Like Mary wanted to sleep next to her. 

The girl yawned again, blushing when the brunette glanced at her, and she waved her away before she could ask. “I’m fine.”

“You slept last night.”

“And this morning,” the blonde agreed. She looked outside. “I’ll sleep when dawn comes. This is priority.”

“I know it is,” Lana said. 

“Though I wish I’d had more time between New Orleans and here,” Mary continued. “But it’s priority, right? Demons over me.” The brunette scowled. Her left hand left the wheel and she placed her elbow on the window’s edge, biting at her thumbnail as she mulled over her words, her mind.

“Don’t miss the exit, Lana.”

She brought her hand back to the steering wheel, thumb glistening with saliva. She quickly wiped it off in her lap. “Sorry.” The fingers on her right hand drummed on the leather but she stopped abruptly, though Mary didn’t seem to be listening. But the blonde reached over and intertwined their hands, sighing when Lana did. 

“You’re never nervous, I always am,” Mary murmured. “What’s wrong?”

Lana breathed in. “Everything lately, it seems.” She tugged Mary’s hand off the console and to her lips, pressing a kiss to the back of her knuckles before she let go and took the turn she’d missed that morning. The blonde’s hand fell to her own knee, picking at the threads on her dress’s skirt as the journalist parked, the back of her hand red with lipstick. 

“Be careful stepping out, will you?” Lana said. “It’s muddy.” But she was quick in rounding the car and helping Mary out, gaze on the horizon and her frown deep. She didn’t respond when the blonde thanked her and she let the sister overtake her while she rooted in the car’s trunk for her equipment. The Walker home guided them with twinkling lights in the falling darkness. 

Kit let them in quickly, apologizing for the mess he was trying to clean, building blocks strewn about the stained rug. He pressed the toys to his chest, looking around with a hand to his curls as he scratched errantly. 

“I’ll go put these away, I’ll be right back.”

He disappeared into the hallway, rounding the corner, and Mary let out a sigh, eyes narrowing as if she were in pain. Lana thought she could see tears building at her eyelashes.

“The feeling is so different,” the girl said. “So potent.” She glanced at the brunette. “What it was before was tainted, unpure. This is raw.”

“Are you going to be alright?” Lana asked. She stepped closer, shadowing the blonde. “Can you handle this?”

Mary’s eyes closed and she fell into the armchair nearest to her, upper body swaying lightly. “Anchor me down,” she prayed. Lana replied with a positive hum, unsure if the sister talked to God or her. 

Kit came back with his hands in his pockets, as if he didn’t know where else to put them, and he watched the blonde for a short moment before clearing his throat. Her eyes snapped open, sky blue, and he smiled awkwardly.

“Sorry, Sister. What’s with the bag, Winters?”

Lana glanced down at the duffel at her feet and she prodded it with her the tip of her heel. “We’re going to catch a ghost, aren’t we, Mr. Walker?”

“You got like, nets in there or somethin’?” he joked. 

She shook her head, breaking into a smile. “It’s not that simple.”

“Wish it was,” he answered. “Sister, do you need a glass of water? You’re lookin’ pale.”

“No thank you, I’m quite alright. Lana, will you need help setting up?”

“Stay, I’ve got this.”

She reached for the bag and placed it on the couch before unzipping it, pulling out cameras that Kit eagerly took into his own hands. 

He pulled on a string until he reached the end of it. It fell through the end of his fingers and back to the floor. “Trip wires?”

“Corporal forms aren’t unheard of.”

“Christ.”

He let Lana take one of the cameras and one of the tripods she’d miraculously stashed into the duffel somehow and she walked to the corner of the room, surveying the angles before setting them up. She taped them together unceremoniously and the young man watched, unsure, but he didn’t mention it.

“You two work alone? With all this equipment?” 

Mary shook her head. “If you know of anyone who’d wish to help us, let us know.”

“You’ve got a point. You two are brave souls for doin’ this. I know too many men who’d turn tail and run.”

The blonde let out a sigh but Kit ignored it.

“Do I have permission to enter your daughter’s bedroom?” Lana asked. “If the entity is attached to her, I’ll need that room surveyed.”

“Go right ahead, yeah. It’s down the hall on the left.” He watched her leave, hands deep in his pockets. He looked to the blonde and found the girl’s blue eyes on the floor, and he sniffed as if he were sick. “So what’s gonna happen tonight, Sister.”

“We’re going to wait for it, and we’re going to identify it. It’s why Ms. Winters is putting up cameras and voice recorders. And then tomorrow we’ll work on a solution, Mr. Walker. Once we know what were up against.” She shifted her gaze. “I’m afraid tonight won’t be very exciting.”

“I’m done with an excitin’ life,” he muttered. “I’ve had enough excitement.”

“How’s Julia?”

He glanced at the blonde. “A little banged up. Bruises, you know? Lots of nightmares. But I think Thomas is more afraid than her.”

“How so?”

“He thinks that when it, whatever it is, finally gets to him, it’ll be to do things much worse.” He scratched at his ear. “I’ve tried tellin’ him it ain’t so, but when he’s got an idea in his head he won’t let it go. The both of them.” He looked up. “You think it’ll show up even without the kids around?”

“I’ve got an inkling,” Mary murmured. 

Lana came back into the room, the roll of tape around her wrist like a bracelet. “That’s all of them.” She passed Kit, brushing past him. “I hope you made coffee, it’s going to be a long night.” She leaned into Mary she put away the tape, her cheek rushing across blonde falls. “It’ll be alright. Just long,” she continued, though her dark eyes were fixed on the nun. The girl nodded weakly. 

The brunette settled herself down in the armchair farthest from the coffee table, sharp gaze on the camera in the corner, and Kit followed Mary down onto the couch, rubbing his palms together. 

It didn’t take long for a book to fall from a shelf, falling face down onto the floor, its spine arched. Kit ignored the noise but Lana fixed her attention on it. To the young man, objects falling in a house where children lived and played was normal. But his kids were long gone. 

Mary heard the whispers first when the clock struck one, her head tilting to the left as she listened, Lana’s fingers picking at a scab as she watched the girl narrow her eyes, unable to understand. Kit watched, breath baited, and he nodded when the brunette asked if it seemed familiar, her voice low, the whispering lower. 

The voice moved through the living room, seemingly hovering over the rug before it moved down into the bedrooms. 

“It’s sentient,” Mary said. 

Kit glanced between the women. “Is that good or bad?” The brunette shushed him as she stood and he fell back into the pillows, worry flashing across his features. 

A scream tore through the house and Kit shuddered openly, hazel eyes shutting as Mary’s grip tightened on her skirt and her knuckles turned white.  
The thing continued to wail and Lana tip-toed to the end of the living room, pushing her hair back behind her ear as if it would help. 

“Is the camera snapping?” Mary hissed out. The brunette waved her hand at her but nodded as she continued to tread carefully, clicks echoing in the house.  
The book suddenly slid across the floor and slammed into her shoe and she yelped despite herself, shaken as she searched for balance. Her black eyes darted up to meet Mary’s gaze and the blonde stared back, halfway out of her seat. Kit began to move towards her but she threw her hand up. 

“Don’t move, Mr. Walker,” she warned. “And don’t do anything rash.”

“You think I would?” he asked. “This is much too excitin’ for me already.”

“Let it pass through. Let it calm down,” she added.

It screamed again as her words fell flat.

Kit let out a sudden yell, doubling over with his arm to his chest, and Mary rushed to his side.

“ _Où est mon fils_!” 

His head snapped back as if felled with a blow and he tripped over himself, falling onto his backside with a grunt. The back of his skull cracked onto the floor. 

The window panes shook as the creature screamed again, its shrieks ear splitting, and the three of them brought their hands to their ears, Mary’s knees buckling beneath her. A rush of wind pushed past them, whipping their bodies forward and pulling Kit back to the floor as he struggled to stand. 

The house fell quiet, the boy staring up at the ceiling and Lana with her hand outstretched towards Mary. 

They breathed out of sync, chests rising as the house creaked around them painfully, as it settled back into a quiet stupor. As if it’d been slapped across the face and left to wonder. Lana felt as if she’d been hit herself, her fingers shaking before her. 

The wood groaned but all they heard now was their respiration.

“Is it over?” Kit asked, voice strangled. “I can’t feel my legs. My arm-”

The brunette hurried to his side. “Sit still.”

“I can’t move,” he protested. He let out a sharp cry when she pressed her fingers to his forearm and he pulled back, trying to edge away. “Goddamn it!”

“Is he hurt?” Mary asked. Lana glanced up and the blonde bit the inside of her cheek, looking away. “Did you bring the first aid kit?”

“It’s in the duffel.”

Kit raised his head as best he could from the carpet. “Should we be movin’ around like this?” he hissed. “What with that thin’ walkin’ around?”

“It’s gone for now, Mr. Walker,” Mary assured him. “It’s used its resources.”

“Resources?” 

Lana took the bandages that were handed to her. “She means energy. Entities have to store a lot of energy to be able to be heard, seen, or felt, in our world.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, ladies, you know your jobs and all, but this creature shows up every night. Hasn’t it got tired by now?”

“Your demon’s holding onto a lot of grief and rage to appear so often,” the blonde said. “A lot of anger to appear so loudly and to leave such marks.”

Kit followed a blue gaze to his arm and he stared as Lana did. Fingers had punctured his skin as if holding on tight to his arm, pulling him this way and that. Claws that had raked red lines before embedding deep into his flesh. 

“We’re going to have to wash that out-”

“What, with alcohol?”

“It has to be disinfected.”

“Oh god.” He looked up. “I don’t do wounds, Ms. Winters.”

“Grow a spine, Mr. Walker.” Lana stood and held out her hand for him to take. 

“And here I’ve always told my kids to suck it up when I cleaned their scrapes. I’m gonna cry ain’t I.” 

“Most likely.”

He tittered on his feet and she righted him before pushing him towards the bathroom. He went slowly, his hand to the back of his head and his steps unsure, but Lana held back and turned to face Mary.

“Are you alright?”

The girl nodded, chest rising and falling heavily.

“Do you have any ideas-?”

“It’s not a demon.”

“That’s good.”

“No, Lana. There’s a demon. But it’s not whatever just attacked us.”

Black eyes blinked and finally Lana walked away, spine arched as she was sure Mary’s was bristling. 

Kit was waiting sitting on the toilet when she walked in and he looked up, somewhat lost.

“Not whatever just attacked us?” he echoed lowly.

Lana sighed as she sat on the bathtub’s edge. “I can’t say yet, Mr. Walker. We have evidence to go through. Mary is simply making a guess.”

“An educated guess, I’m sure.”

“You weren’t supposed to hear,” the brunette added. He laughed breathlessly as she reached for the gauze and the rubbing alcohol and he quickly turned serious to Lana’s amusement. He gritted his teeth when she cleaned his wound, grunting and groaning and tilting his head back and forth. He jumped as she bandaged his arm but quieted down, watching her carefully.

“Not too tight?”

“It’s fine. Thanks,” he replied. He flexed his fingers and let his elbow fall into his lap. “I’m screwed, aren’t I.” He didn’t wait for her answer. “Is everythin’ okay?”

She glanced up, momentarily pausing as she cleaned the sink. “What do you mean?”

He shook his head. “You know what I mean, but it’s fine if you don’t wanna talk.”

“I _don’t_ know what you mean.”

He shrugged, hazel eyes on the blood underneath his fingernails. 

They relayed each other from there, Mary taking the first watch though Lana had fought for her to sleep first,  but the blonde had insisted. _It’s gone for the night, Lana. This is just formalities now._

She took the second, watching over the girl as she slept fitfully on the couch, Kit wheezing out snores at her side. He woke abruptly when she shook him and he rubbed at his eyes. He mumbled at her but she couldn’t understand and ignored it.

“I need a cigarette,” she told Kit. “Do you think you can-?”

“Only if you let me have a break after you,” he muttered. “I’m gonna finish a pack after this shit.” She nodded and he placed his had back on his pillow, eyes remaining open as he waited for her to go and come back. 

She left the living room quickly, closing the front door behind her before reaching for her lighter. Plumes of smoke rose from her cigarette and her mouth and into the pre-dawn air, clouding with her breath when she paused to sigh out. 

She was about to stomp out the rest of it, feeling nauseous after the first half, but she turned as a creak sounded out from where the swings were. She froze abruptly, fingers threatening to lock painfully as golden cat eyes watched back from the playset. 

Mary stood slowly, her own ember ashes dusting out into the wind, and she carefully made her way over, foot in front of the other in a calculated manner that was so utterly not her. 

Lana glanced back behind her, the door still closed, and she thought she heard the blonde giggle as she approached the patio. She was sure she’d left the sister in the living room, on the couch.

The girl ascended the stairs slowly, with a grace that wasn’t her body’s, and placed herself before Lana, their chests meeting when she breathed in to smoke. The brunette watched her, flinching when tainted air was pushed back into her face. She almost wanted to swallow it. Mary smirked.

Lana picked the cigarette from in between rose tainted lips and let it fall to the ground, crushing it beneath her heel and into the white wood. “It’s not your body.”

“No, it’s not. Not yet,” the blonde admitted, huffing out the last of the smoke. She looked out into the pitch black. It took her a moment to speak again. “She’s strong, unfortunately. By now I’d have her sniveling like a cow. A pig. A horse waiting for the whip.” She grimaced, a child who’s tasted something unpalatable. “Why hasn’t she fallen to me? How does she resist all I have to offer?”

“A whip and a sob?” Lana questioned. “She’s got a good heart. Pure. Innocent. God-given.”

The devil sneered. “God,” she spit. “A tale for children.”

“And you?”

“A nightmare.”

“All that you have to offer.”

The devil glanced her over, gaze narrowed. “Why do you love her so?”

“She’s got a good heart,” the brunette repeated. The stub of her cigarette began burning at her fingertips.

The golden eyed creature’s grin grew. “And you?”

“Not.”

“How sure you sound.” The blonde pouted mockingly. 

“Ask your God,” Lana snapped back testily. “He has something to reproach me.”

“So you fuck girls. I hardly care,” the girl breathed. “Neither would He.”

“I thought he was a children’s tale.”

“Oh, sure.”

Lana glanced at her.

“No, Lana. Make girls come all you want with your tongue to their lips. What he doesn’t like is you harboring feelings for one of his wives.” The blonde motioned to her body.

“I would never,” the woman growled, tearing her gaze away.

“I know that,” the devil’s eyebrow raised. “Do you?”

“I care for her,” Lana enunciated thickly. “I respect her.”

“Not in your dreams.”

“Then you know nothing of my dreams.” She threw a disdainful look to the creature inhabiting the young sister. “I know what you’re doing. It won’t work.”

“It almost did.” The devil peered at her curiously. “What are your dreams then, Lana? If not her?”

“Her happiness,” Lana answered immediately. She looked up, dark gaze blacker than the night surrounding them. “You have no place in this happiness. And I will acquire it for her.”

The blonde grinned. “How ambitious are we, Ms. Lana Winters.” She walked away, humming and tittering aimlessly, as if gloriously drunk. She glanced back, cat eyes disappearing in the darkness. “I will break you. The both of you. And I will watch your bodies dance in the Hellfires.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanoned with and beta-ed by Grace  
> Music: God Knows I Tried by Lana Del Rey

“I think I figured that when it _screamed_ , Mary.”

The blonde across from her sighed heavily, leaning back in her chair and closing her blue eyes. 

“Sorry,” Lana added. She rubbed at her eyes with the palm of her hand. “I didn’t mean to shout.” 

The girl softened, but her eyes remained shut. 

The brunette began again, sheepish now as she flitted her gaze between her notes and the nun across from her. “It’s a woman, and it’s not happy.”

She had her back to the wall, sitting beneath the window with her legs crossed. Mary had seated herself against her island counter, the sunrise illuminating her face as it rose over the Boston skyline, and Lana found herself glancing up more than she usually did, watching the reds and yellows move in tandem over the girl’s porcelain skin.  

“That doesn’t give much information,” Mary murmured. She cracked an eye open, amused, the light brightening her sky blue gaze. “Did you really write that?”

Lana frowned, so close to pouting. “I’m paraphrasing.” She glanced down at her notebook. “It’s a young woman, her voice hasn’t scratched. Though we both know entities can throw their age, so that doesn’t give us much, does it?” She scratched her pen across the page. 

“Demons can change their age, Lana,” Mary replied. “Not poltergeists.”

“You’re saying this thing is a poltergeist.”

The girl turned her gaze to the brunette. “You were there. Wouldn’t you?”

“Is this some kind of test?” Lana teased. 

Mary smiled, blushing prettily as she looked away. 

The journalist shrugged softly. “It’s a little too attached for my taste.”

“They can be,” the blonde continued, lips still tugged up. “It’s sentient. Whatever happened to it was bad enough that it decided to stay and haunt this plane of existence.”

“I thought it was a her.”

“Are you comfortable with calling it a her?”

Lana softened. “I’m comfortable with whatever you’re comfortable with.”

Mary’s eyebrow quirked up, the sun shining gold in her hair. She rubbed at the bridge of her nose and at the gold in her eyes. “I need to know who it is. Or was. I can’t go through with an exorcism if I don’t. It’s so much easier when the victims already know who it could be,” she admitted. 

“I have a feeling the entire Walker family knows.”

“That’s a given,” the blonde sighed. “And even then,” Mary continued. “What if I let the demon through?

Lana looked up, pen pausing its scribbling. “The demon?”

“There’s something else entirely in that house, Lana.” Mary squirmed. “I just know it. Something too evil to be just a spirit. I told you.”

“Yeah. Why didn’t you explain it to me when we were there?” 

“I didn’t want to worry you. You’re worrying now,” she pointed out before Lana could object. The brunette scowled and sat up straight. 

“You don’t think it was just you mirroring yourself? Feeling your own power?”

Mary shook her head. “It fought me the entire way, the entire time I was there. It’s another being altogether,” she said. “It’s scary, whatever it is. Angry. But not as, as sad as the spirit. The spirit is chagrined, depressed. It doesn’t understand what’s happening. This demon, it’s calculated. Cold. Furious. It won’t come out just yet because it knows I’m there. It knows I can feel it. It doesn’t know if it’s more powerful than me or not, so it’s tentative. Demons don’t share well, Lana.”

“I know.”

“If it hasn’t properly surged yet, it’s because it’s afraid of me. The ghost may be hurting Julia, but if anything is calling Kit’s name, it’s not alone.” Mary looked away. “So I’m worried. Exorcisms work like an Ouija board, you know that. If I erase one entity, the other has time to let itself out while I’m not watching.”

“I’ll be watching too.”

The girl hugged herself, eyes tracing the wooden floors. “I don’t know if I’d be able to handle another devil in me, Lana. And I certainly couldn’t handle one in you.” She burrowed back a little further against the counter wall. “I’ve never had a friend like you,” she murmured. “One I could talk to and embrace and be myself with, without having any boundaries haunting me. I couldn’t lose you.”

“I’ll be watching too,” Lana stressed lowly. She closed her notebook. “I’ll talk to Kit this afternoon, try to get some information out of him.” She looked up, the dawn settling. “You should sleep until then.”

“And you?”

“I have some things to do out in town. Will you be alright by yourself?”

“You haven’t slept in your own bed in two days.”

“I have coffee.”

“You hate coffee.”

Lana’s lip quirked up and Mary smiled back before she stood, flattening her skirt. She waved lightly to the brunette, as if a schoolgirl quaking in her heels again, before tracing to Lana’s bedroom and closing the door behind her. 

The roads were drier when they drove to Kit’s house for the third time that week, their second night looming over them both. Lana had leaned over to turn the radio on as they’d left Boston afternoon traffic, the silence between her and the blonde too much for her taste.

She shifted awkwardly in her seat, the Carpenters resounding in the car with an upbeat that she didn’t feel anywhere near her bones or her heart, the music too close to her extremities. She went to reach over to turn the sound down but slender fingers stopped her and she spared a glance at Mary, the girl’s teeth sunk into her bottom lip. She focused on the road again, Karen crooning in her ears, and settled her hand back on the wheel. 

When she parked, the Walker home in the distance and the sky darkening above them, she stood by the hood of the car as she waited for Mary to follow her out, scribbling a quick word beneath the inside of her elbow. The door opened and she tilted her head, finishing what had become a phrase, but the blonde didn’t move to stand.

She’d only turned to let her legs dangle out the side, her blue gaze in her lap. Lana rounded the car to plant herself in front of the girl, looking her over.

“What’s wrong?”

Mary waved vaguely, a sigh escaping. “My shoe’s untied.” The brunette followed her eyes down to her heel. “And I want to tie it. But I don’t want to.” She looked up. “I really do, Lana.”

“I know.”

“But I can’t. I don’t want to.”

Lana  knelt in front of Mary and she reached for her shoe. 

“Thank you,” the girl blurted. She wiped at her eyes. “What would I do without you? Don’t ever leave,” she added in a laugh. 

Lana let out a clipped sigh, chest aching, and she looked up searchingly, though Mary’s eyes would not meet hers, the nun chewing on her bottom lip. “This is my last one, Mary.” She swallowed. “My last case.”

“I know.”

“I-”

“I feel like I don’t remember myself, did you know that? Ever since this ordeal began. Ever since this,” the girl abruptly said. “I remember my parents, my childhood, but nothing of my teenage years. Or my first days as a nun. But I, I remember Rome.” Mary paused. “I went to Rome, did you know?” Lana shook her head though she’d heard the story so many times, and she urged her to continue. It would ground the blonde. It would ground her. She tied a first knot.

Mary smiled, like a child with a new toy. “I was sent to study exorcisms underneath one of the cardinals. A priest had been chosen first, out of the Boston community, but he declined last minute. So he says. I heard he was turned down in the end, right before he went.” Her fingers tugged at the seat’s loose threads. “I just wanted to be a Sunday school teacher, somewhere in an academy. But they sought me out for my humble beginnings. They called me a pure, innocent, soul. Wholly untouched by evil.” She let out a light laugh, blue eyes brimming with tears. “And I went to Rome, and I was trained. Six months in a light, constant spring wind. The cardinal was extremely kind to me, and he believed in me so. He let me help the first time he took me an exorcism, but I wasn’t able to complete it.

"He told me I’d get stronger, and that I’d be able to do them fully by myself soon enough. When I got back to Boston a man was waiting for me, his tongue black by the devil, and Father Timothy stayed in the room with his own bible in his hands. But I did it all by myself.

"I so quickly became famous in the diocese for what I’d done.” She looked up, a long moment passing. “Do you have any fans, Lana? With what you’ve written for me? About me?”

“Fans? More like stalkers,” the brunette replied. “Devil worshipers and the like.”

The blonde nodded slowly, her voice soft beneath her blue eyes. “The Briarcliff case must have gotten you a lot of those.”

Lana looked up, gaze hard. “The Briarcliff case got me the entirety of the Catholic church on my back. And a devil on yours.”

Mary tore her eyes away, biting her lower lip hard. She looked to the corner of the room, the floor. “You know I- that day? Before I went in and did the exorcism? When I was still myself? What I told you?”

“Mary.”

The blonde looked up, her fingers shaking in her lap. “I do care for you. Immensely. I love you.”

Lana’s head fell. “Jesus.”

“Even more so now, twofold,” Mary added, trying to grab her attention. “For staying with me, past me telling you I could never break my vows no matter how much I wanted you, past me unable to reciprocate your needs. Past me being, being this, this mutation of minds.” Lana breathed out, looking up beneath a heavy brow. “Please don’t write this one, Lana, I beg you.”

“Mary, I have to.” 

The girl shifted in her seat pitifully. “But then you’ll leave me. You’ll be done with your job and you’ll leave.” 

Lana stood, black eyes watching her and blinking in between bouts of narrowness, and she leaned in to press a soft kiss to the blonde’s forehead. Mary anchored her hands in her hair, keeping her still.

“Push it back, Lana, keep this one in your backpocket.” She heaved in a breath, chest trembling with unshed sobs. “Please don’t leave me.”

“Why would I leave you?” Lana murmured.

“Doesn’t everyone?”

The brunette thought of the devil and pushed unruly curls out of her face. “I’ve stayed this long, haven’t I? I told you I’d take care of everything when we met, I meant it sparingly, for the articles. I mean it now wholly.” She tilted the girl’s head up, fingers beneath her chin and a soft smile to her features. “I love you, Mary Eunice, why would I leave you?”

Mary’s lower lip trembled as her tears finally fell and she shut her eyes tight, burrowing in Lana’s chest when the brunette went to hold her. Kisses they’d shared before; slow, tortuous ones to Lana who no matter how hard she tried couldn’t stop the broiling heat in her chest; sweet, angelic ones to Mary who’d never really felt anything but annoyance and irritation thrown her way. 

Their second case together had been harrowing for Lana, hospitals made her uncomfortable and abandoned ones made her want to turn and run away, tail between her legs. And so she’d kissed Mary out of need for some liquid courage in her hollowed veins screaming for safety away from the looming building. A quick thing that had seemed more like her smashing her mouth to the blonde’s. But Mary had only blushed, peeked a smile, and chastised her lightly. And her fingers had been tight around Lana’s hand when they’d walked in together, the brunette’s shoulders up to her ears.

Liquid courage. That’s all these were.

The blonde pulled away now, smiling shakily, and Lana pecked another kiss to the corner of her lips, softening when Mary wiped at her nose sheepishly. 

“Thank you.”

Lana didn’t reply, rubbing the tip of her nose to Mary’s before straightening her back. She held her hand out and the blonde took it, standing on tied shoes, and she pulled her up until she could embrace her properly, the blonde’s arms intertwining around the woman’s neck when she buried her nose into chestnut strands. Lana felt hot tears begin to dot her neck and she held the sister tighter.

“Are you alright?”

“Could you take me home? I’m sorry,” the girl stammered.

“Mary?”

“I thought I could do this, but I can’t. Not today. I want to. But I can’t. I’d like to go home. I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry for making you drag me out here.”

“Mary, it’s fine. I’ll take you, alright? You can stay at my place and I’ll come back alone. I can handle it today.”

The blonde cried in her arms, sagging lightly, and Lana helped her back into the car. She kissed her temple, lingering there before pulling away.

“Let’s get you home.”

She left Mary in between her covers, two pillows beneath her head and her face smothered into the mattress, the girl curled up on herself. 

If Kit noticed from afar that she was alone, standing in his doorway with a shoulder against the frame, he didn’t show it or say anything when she arrived on his porch. He shook Lana’s hand firmly and let her in and she was relieved to find coffee already made and in mugs on the kitchen counter, Julia’s cookie tin beside it. Though the kids were nowhere to be seen, or heard.

She eyed the cups. “How’s your arm?” the brunette asked.

“It hurts for sure, but you patched me up just fine,” he replied. He closed the door behind him, not bothering to lock it. “Miss McKee not here today?”

“She had some things to do,” Lana said. Kit pushed one of the mugs towards her and she took it greedily, the sides burning her palms and the black scalding her throat. 

He watched her for a long moment, leaving his own unattended. “You guys got some, some kinda report for me? Or somethin’?”

“You’ve got a woman scorned on your hands, Mr. Walker.”

He laughed, but it was joyless. “I’ve got a wife already, Ms. Winters. How’d you figure?”

“The feeling is feminine, Mary can attest to that. Though don’t take it for a woman,” Lana said. “It’s not.”

Kit looked to her. “Now I like to think I’m a humble man, Winters, but I also like to believe no woman would ever smack my skull to the floor.”

She smiled. “I’m sure you’re an outstanding citizen, Mr. Walker. I just want you to understand that what we’re dealing with is far from human. Entities, whatever they may be, are not human.”

“It’s Kit, Winters.”

She nodded and he finally drank his coffee.

He cleared his throat. “It look like it’s gonna rain.”

“It probably will. It’s the season to.”

“You wanna go outside before it does? I feel like we both need some fresh air.”

She hadn’t thought the swings would hold them both but he was easy in sitting down in them and so she followed carefully. They groaned but he swung and they stayed strong on their foundations, and so she too swayed lightly. 

“Are you two hidin’ somethin’ from me?” he asked softly. 

She glanced at him and looked away again, hands in her lap. “No. Maybe omitting the truth, but it’s a far-fetched truth, one that we’re not sure is a truth. I wouldn’t want tell you one only for it to be deemed a lie later on.”

He nodded slowly. “You two don’t make much sense apart, but together you’re a force to be reckoned with.”

It took her a long minute to speak, her gaze on the dirt she played with, the tip of her heel pushing it to and fro as she swung minutely. “I’ve been working with her close to a year, Mr.Walker,” she murmured. “Kit.” He looked to her, confused and she raised her shoulders and let them fall. “You asked, earlier.”

He swayed on.

She took a deep breath. “I’m writing a series of ten pieces on Miss McKee, the church hired me and is paying me to do so. It wasn’t my career plan at first but now I don’t see myself anywhere else. But I’m hoping a newspaper editor sees them and decides to take me on.” She picked at her knee. “This is my last one.”

“Why does the church want this written so much? This shit’s horrible.”

“It is. But then so are the demons when left unattended. Mary saves people, she can help. The church can help. Me publishing these gets the word out, the word out that absolution is reachable, so near. That it isn’t the end when you become haunted or…” She chose her next words carefully. “A puppet.” She shrugged lightly. “I don’t know, I just write.” She glanced at him. “I didn’t believe before, Kit. I thought it was all bullshit, and I still think God is an abstract concept. But I know demons and the devils exist. I know Hell is down there.” She looked away, into the lowering fog. “Or up above.” 

They fell silent, swinging in sync and then out of it, his strides longer than hers, more nervous, though she found it hard for him to be.

She sighed. “Kit?”

“Yeah.”

“How did your wife die?”

Kit’s head whipped up sharply, hazel eyes tumultuous. He sat up straight, gaze hardening. “My wife? Alma’s alive and well, Ms. Winters. You’ve seen her yourself.”

“You know what I mean, Kit,” Lana said. “Your other wife. Your second wife. Thomas’s mother.”

“We were never-”

“I’m a journalist, it’s my job to snoop. And I snooped. Two marriage certificates to two different women. How did Grace Bertrand die, Mr. Walker?” 

“We-I took care to have those records erased-”

“I’m an ambitious gal.”

Kit breathed in heavily, fingers tight on the swing’s chains. “You wouldn’t dare say anythin’ to anyone.”

“That’s not my goal, Mr. Walker. My goal is finding out what the hell is plaguing you. Tell me how your wife died, and we’ll be one step closer.” 

He eyed her for a moment, distrust shining through his hazel eyes, but it was something she was used to, something she’d seen in his children’s gaze. He leaned forward. “If I talk about my wife, then you tell me what the fuck is going on with blondie. I know somethin’s up, you can’t hide that.”

Lana bit the inside of her cheek. “Deal.”

He fell back, threatening to fall, distraught as he rubbed the palm of his hand against his unshaven cheek. “We were married,” he finally admitted. “But only because Alma left. I thought she was dead. The police thought she was dead. You know how it is, she’s-” he paused, unsure, “Darker.”

“I understand that.”

“She was pregnant then,” he added. “I lost two people that night. But I met Grace, and we got married, and we had Thomas. And one day Alma came back with a little girl. My little girl. My little twins.”

He let his head fall into his hands, elbows digging into his thighs. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”

Lana edged closer, feet firmly in the ground. “What happened, Mr. Walker?”

“Alma got jealous. Of Thomas and of Grace and that I was able to love two women. A child that wasn’t hers.” His breath shuddered in. “She killed Grace. She murdered her, Winters. Right there in that livin’ room.” 

Lana thought of the black stains she’d had beneath her heels. 

“And I had to tell Thomas she passed in the night. And I have to live with a murderer taking care of my children. Or Julia, anyway. Alma doesn’t care much for him.”

“I’m sorry, Kit.”

He looked up. “My wife is dead and there’s somethin’ horribly wrong with that girl of yours. So spill, Winters. We had a deal.” 

Lana let her black gaze fall to the floor. “There’s nothing to say. She’s a sweetheart,” she murmured. “A little naive and a little too kind, maybe.”

“She doesn’t seem it,” he replied, bitterness twisting his features. “Don’t lie to me, I ain’t all stupid.”

“What do you even want to hear from me?” The brunette shifted in her seat, uncrossing her legs before crossing them again. “She’s changed.” She swallowed and Kit waited for her to continue. “I’ve never talked about this,” she offered softly.

“It’s okay,” he replied.

She breathed in tightly, fingers tapping against her thigh. “Our fourth case together, we were at this, this asylum. Briarcliff, back in town. And things went…wrong.”

He moved to be closer. “Wrong? Wrong how?”

“Exorcisms,” she chose her words carefully, “Exorcisms don’t always turn out the way you’d want them to. We went too far with the rituals to save this boy from an extremely difficult possession. He’d have died so quickly and easily if we hadn’t acted. But we ignored safety and we entered a territory we’d never touched before. That demon, that devil, left that young man’s body. And maybe he went into Mary a little too.”

“She’s-”

“Yes. And it’s my fault.” She laughed bitterly. “You wouldn’t happen to know any exorcists, would you?”

He glanced at her. “Can’t you just ask the church?”

Her voice was tight and she looked away, knees knocking together as she moved. “They don’t know. I don’t think they should. She doesn’t think so either.”

“You know how this works. She’ll be fine. Father Tim told me it always goes well.”

Lana smiled. “How I wish I had as much faith as you did.” She shook her head, black eyes tearing over. She willed the pain away. “It’s too strong, Mr. Walker, too ingrained and intertwined with her own soul. If we do this the devil will be cast out, and she’ll die.” She rubbed at her temple. “If we don’t she’ll die anyway. Not her body, but her soul. It’s eating away at her. And I told her I’d find someone, a solution. And I haven’t. And I don’t know what to do anymore, every new encounter with a spirit makes it stronger within her. She feeds off of evil.” She clicked her tongue. “It. It feeds off of evil.

"And what hurts the most is that she still believes in me. Believes that there’s something I can do for her. There’s nothing I can do. I so want to be her savior, but I’m not Mary, she is. And I can’t save her.”

“Lana-”

She shrugged. “I’ll just have to hold her hand till that day comes, won’t I?” she interrupted him. Her black eyes steeled as she watched his emotions flicker. “Don’t think I won’t. I gladly will. I’ll go into Hell with her.” The brunette stood abruptly. “I’m sorry, I think I’m going to go.”

He nodded quickly, slackjawed. 

“We’ll come back tomorrow night, Mr. Walker, with a bible. We’ll get started on ridding your home of its evil spirits. I forgot my purse in the kitchen,” she muttered. Her heels dug into the gravel, sinking in like it was quicksand, like her soul was heavier than before, not lighter as she had thought it would be. “I would push her into Heaven,” she continued to herself. “Stand in Hell and help her up that ladder and out that sewer.”

She passed Mary’s ghost on her way back out, the girl’s golden eyes turned searchingly on the floor, her knees knocking together lazily as she shifted lightly as if in a trance, sprawled there in her armchair. A ghost or maybe a whisper left behind by the girl; the devil. Lana turned her gaze away when the ghost looked up, grin resplendent, as if someone had murmured in her haloed hair the funniest joke.

Lana wondered if, at home, Mary was crying or laughing.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanoned with and beta-ed by Grace  
> Music: What's Happening to Me by Two Steps from Hell

“Promise me you’ll be strong, whatever happens.”

Lana glanced sideways, her knuckles tightening on the steering wheel. “Me?”

“I know it doesn’t settle well with you when I do this.”

“It doesn’t settle well with you either.” She reached over and turned the windshield wipers on, fat drops of ice cold rain splattering against their windows.

“Promise me, Lana.”

“What else?” the brunette asked, voice low. “What else would you want of me tonight?”

“Don’t interfere.”

Lana clicked her tongue, sparing a look out the window. “You’re asking a lot.”

“I only want you safe,” Mary murmured. “I wouldn’t ask anything of you unless it was to make sure you were.”

The woman’s palm abruptly hit the wheel. “I’m the one who’s supposed to watch over you!” 

The blonde’s blue eyes scanned her lap.

“I-” Lana’s voice broke and she swallowed heavily. “I’m the one who’s supposed to make sure you’re safe.”

“I hate it when you blame yourself,” the blonde said. “You can’t. This isn’t your fault.”

“Isn’t it?” she spit back. “I told you to go right on ahead, I didn’t stop you when I should have.”

“You told me not to, I went on. If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s mine. But it’s not.” The girl looked to her. “This is no one’s fault. And it’s definitely not yours.”

“It was my job to keep you safe.”

“And you did,” Mary assured her. She reached for her hand, unwrapping her locked fingers from around the leather and squeezing them tight. “I’m still here. See?” She placed the woman’s hand in her lap, leaning in. “See?” 

Lana’s gripped tightened on her thigh and she turned her black eyes on the blonde, confused and hurt, and Mary closed the gap between them to kiss her cheek, the bones beneath her eyes, the tip of her ear.

She pulled away when Lana’s lip finally quirked up, her flush fighting her all the way, and she smiled too. Lana looked her over, the beginning of a grin skirting her features and Mary grinned back, golden eyes darker than bronze. 

The journalist’s face fell. “Mary-?”

Sun turned to ice. “ _Lana!_ ”

The brunette  turned back to the road.

She pulled on the wheel tightly, foot slamming on the brake at the same time and they began to spin on the dirt road turned to mud by the storm outside. 

Spun and spun and spun until they weren’t spinning anymore, Lana straightening out the car for mere seconds before they slammed into something concrete. They fell forward both, the brunette’s chest hitting the wheel and the horn ringing out in a short gasp, Mary’s shoulder twisting into the dashboard. Smoke rose from the bent hood, from the tires where they’d drifted. Their ears rung. 

The tree stood tall, the car damaged beneath its branches.

Lana’s eyes were wide and she watched as the deer she’d tried so hard to avoid walked past them almost nonchalantly, almost smugly, animal gaze wild and yellow in the faded headlights.

She looked right, alarmed. “Mary?” Lana reached over, stammering over the rain pelting the roof. “Are you alright? I’m so sorry-”

“I’m okay,” the girl whispered. Her neck was turning red where her seat belt had dug into her throat. She rubbed at her arm. “I’m okay.” She began to cry and she fought to swallow her tears. “I’m sorry.”

“Mary, no-”

“I see things happening through its eyes and I’m powerless to stop it.” The blonde wiped at her nose with the edge of her jacket’s sleeve. “Are you-?”

Lana ignored the burning in her lungs. “I’m fine.” She undid her seat belt and pulled the girl to her, their heartbeats matching in a heightened rhythm. Mary sighed into her neck, arms tight around her back. “We’re fine.”

The silence was deafening though the rain drummed on above and around them, the woman’s fingers sifting through yellow locks. 

Lana let go and leaned forward uncounted minutes later, wiping at the fogged windshield with the back of her hand, peering out into the darkness. “It doesn’t look too bad, I think we can still drive.” She looked up the tree. “We can’t stay out here in this weather.” She reached for the keys, but waited a moment. “You ready?”

Mary breathed out. “Slowly, please.”

The brunette brought the blonde to her and kissed her forehead firmly before starting the car and backing away from the tree. She took her time reaching the Walker home, black eyes fixing the road as she leaned over the wheel to be as close as possible. When her chest touched the wheel she winced, but she didn’t risk moving her hand to her collarbone to rub the pain through her skin. 

She helped Mary out of the passenger side and pulled the girl’s hood up over her hair, holding her trembling fingers in hers as she herself took the storm and as they walked the kilometer to the cottage.

She held her hand out to knock but faltered, glancing back at Mary shivering behind her. She breathed in tightly. “Kit knows.”

The blonde nodded minutely. “I figured.”

The young man was eager in welcoming Mary back into his home, kissing her cheeks and taking her coat from her to hang it up. He’d changed his bandages to fresh ones, his grin lopsided though his knee moved back and forth in something akin to anxiousness. 

He rubbed the palms of his hands together, eyebrows worried. “So tonight’s the night, huh.”

Lana’s knuckles rapped against the bible she fetched out from underneath her arm. 

“I can’t thank you two enough.”

“We haven’t even started, Mr. Walker,” Mary said. “You’re putting too much faith in us already.”

He laughed nervously. “You would know about faith, wouldn’t you?” He shook his head. “Father Tim told me you were the best, and I haven’t been proven otherwise just yet,” he added softly. 

The blonde watched him for a moment before turning her eyes away. “You’re very kind.” Lana mirrored her gaze but didn’t flinch. “Would you give us a moment?”

“I’ll be on the porch.”

The brunette traced to the fridge once he left and reached into the freezer to pull out an icecube tray. She shook the cubes into a plastic bag, wrapped it in a towel, and handed it to Mary who placed it against her elbow, the skin there raised and quickly turning purple.

“Won’t he mind?”

“That he doesn’t have any ice for his next whiskey?” the brunette replied. “I’ll make some more.” She shrugged. “He looks like he drinks beer, anyway. How are you feeling?”

“Shaken,” Mary admitted. She sat in the nearest chair. “I would have that feeling of premonition, that out-of-body experience, having potentially almost died? But I don’t. Perhaps it’s because I always feel that way.” She looked up. “Or do you mean for tonight?”

“Both,” Lana answered. She looked down and away. “I’m sorry.”

“I really don’t want to hear it,” the girl sighed. She placed her elbow on the table but paused, sitting back instead. “It’s my fault too.”

“Were you driving?”

“It was my body against the driver’s.” She glanced up, memory seemingly confused. “Wasn’t it?”

The brunette chewed the inside of her cheek as Mary passed a hand through her hair, the palm of her hand resting on her forehead.

“It’s not here, you know,” the girl murmured.

“What isn’t.”

“The demon.” Mary tilted her head, her eyes closing beneath a light scowl. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe there’s nothing here but that spirit, maybe you were right when you said I was only mirroring myself.” She blinked. “Maybe I’m strong enough now that I’m detaching from my body, roaming free.” She laughed, shaking her head. “Ridiculous, right?”

Lana said nothing.

The blonde bit her lip. “No, I was just wrong. There’s nothing here. I’m not myself, I’m not thinking straight. I just have to find a way to keep this spirit calm while we exorcise it. I don’t want a repeat of L.A.,” she told her. “I need to think. I wasn’t able to last night. Or this morning.”

Lana nodded. “You slept.”

“I couldn’t not,” Mary murmured, sheepish. 

The brunette walked in a tight circle, arms crossed over her chest. 

The sister sighed. “I need to think,” she repeated. “I need space.”

Lana acquiesced of her head, watching a watery blue gaze carefully. “Okay.” 

“I’ll call you back in when I’m ready to start,” Mary added. “Don’t worry. I won’t do this without you. I never have and I wouldn’t start now.” 

The woman went to move towards the girl but left instead, already pulling out a cigarette. She shut the door behind her.

Kit held his lighter out for her and she accepted it easily, puffing away and with her thumb flicking the end back and forth quickly. 

“Mary, uh, Mary told me that there’s nothing else but your poltergeist, after all,” Lana said softly. “I don’t want you to worry, so I’m telling you. Her educated guess was wrong.”

“No demon, then. That’s good, right?” He played with his lighter. “Huh.” He flicked it shut, then open again. “Don’t tell Alma I said this, but I wish this was pot,” he muttered, his hazel gaze fixed on his own cigarette.

“Don’t tell Mary I wholeheartedly agree.”

He took a moment to speak. “You know, you’re alright, Winters.”

“Don’t flatter me, Kit.”

The young man smiled and they smoked in unison. 

She huffed out, looking up at a clearing sky, the hills rising with fog. “I kinda scuffed the car on the way here. I’ll go take a look.”

“Don’t trip on that mud, I won’t know to come and pick you up outta there.”

She waved at him vaguely as she began the walk back to the dented car, more damaged than scuffed, and she left embers in her wake, a stub too. She had issues lighting her next cigarette, the strong winds putting out the flame every time she flicked the lighter open and she walked backwards to shield the fire before straightening back out again. 

She didn’t pause to look at the car’s hood twisted in on itself, black eyes on the door instead. She slipped into the car heavily and rested her forehead against the top of the wheel, breathing out harshly, shoulder blades hiked up. 

She didn’t react when the passenger door opened and when a figure sat beside her. She spied a flash of white skin when she opened her eyes, but she closed them again, digging her head into the wheel.

“She loves you,” the devil sighed. “It’s so beautiful, don’t you think? I would cry if I could. I might let her.” She spared a glance at the brunette. “It’s not unlike Romeo and Juliet. Doomed to die in Florence.”

“Verona.”

“Fair Verona, where we lay our scene,” she murmured. “Who shall die for the other first? Who is the Capulet, who is the Montague?”

“Neither.”

“Oh, play along, Lana.” The girl settled back in the car seat, raising her knees until she could rest her feet on the dashboard. She scratched errantly at the skin that showed when her skirt fell down her calves. “I could be Mercutio. Or Tybalt.”

“They both die.”

Mary smiled ruefully. “They all do. But Tybalt lives by me, on my throne. He holds me at night and whispers in my ear of all the star-crossed lovers he would wish to vanquish. I wouldn’t say the same for Mercutio, so strong-hearted towards Romeo as he was. He would say naught to me. He would turn his cheek to me.”

“He would bite his thumb?”

The blonde’s smile grew into a grin. She rested her chin in her hand, her elbow on her outstretched knee. “I do love my scholars.”

“They must keep you entertained down in Hades.”

“You’ll know soon enough,” Mary hummed. “Would you recite me Homer?”

“It depends on which.”

“If Mary is your Helen, then the Iliad.” The blonde cocked her head to the side. “Would you steal her away from her husband? Whisk her to your city with Aphrodite at your back cloaking you in darkness? Or would you be the one taking her back, the one rowing across the Aegan until you saw the great Trojan shores and Athena herself?”

“Who is the husband, who would I steal her from if I was to steal her, God?” Lana glanced at her. “Or you?”

“A question in itself, what would be worse off?”

The brunette pursed her lips, gazing back to the front. “She’s not mine to begin with.”

“You’ve always looked gorgeous in a cloak of darkness,” the girl agreed, purring. “It suits you.” She reached over, fingers whispering through chestnut strands. “My poor Paris. My poor Alexander.” 

Lana’s voice was soft. “Does he die?” 

Mary grinned wolfishly, tugging on her hair. “His old paramour lets him die.” She shifted wholly, sitting up on her knees now, facing the woman. “If not an ancient tale written in my bones, then Cyrano.”

The brunette laughed bitterly. “And I would be Cyrano?”

“I would only have to cast Christian.” She leaned in, framing the journalist’s face with lithe fingers. “ _The leaves-_ ”

“ _What color, perfect. Venetian red. Look at them fall_ ,” Lana murmured.

“ _Yes, they know how to die_ ,” Mary recited back. “ _A little way from the branch of the earth, a little fear of mingling with the common dust, and yet they go down gracefully, a fall that seems like flying_.” She breathed out, lips to the woman’s ear. “Would you like to fly?” 

“With you, I would only fall.” Lana untangled herself from the blonde’s grip and the girl fell back into her seat, huffing out. Her eyes danced on the house in front of them, the night’s silence permeating the air filtering in through the car’s cracked window.

“Aren’t you annoyed?” she demanded, all grace from her voice gone, replaced with a harsh stone rubbing on another. Her gaze blazed with a golden fury.

Lana glanced at her, brow furrowed at the sudden change that was all too common. “Annoyed?”

Mary angled her head, her gaze following a moment later. “That I can’t give you what you’d want of me.”

The brunette’s grip tightened on the wheel before she let her hand fall into her lap, elbow coming up to lean on the door as she looked outside. “I don’t want anything from you. You know that, I told you before. I don’t want anything you won’t want to give me. What _Mary_ won’t want to give me.” She spared her a look. “Are you done with sweet words and poetry?”

The creature beside her laughed lightly, giggles spewing out of its mouth. “Oh, how beautifully worded.” She turned to look out the windshield, giddy. “Wouldn’t you stay if she did give herself to you? I know you’re thinking about leaving, no matter you told her you wouldn’t. I know you said you weren’t going anywhere, I know in your heart you promised her silently, but you’re going to get bored at one point. It’s nice to watch alabaster skin from behind closed doors while she’s changing-”

Lana flushed angrily. “I don’t do that.”

“-but you’ll get bored of even that. And then you’ll leave.” Mary turned her golden eyes onto Lana. “Why not just take me now and run away after with your shame? It’ll be easier for the both of us. The both of you.” She shifted in the car, throwing her leg over the console and straddling the brunette, arms intertwining at the nape of her neck as she grinded slowly. “There’s no need for broken hearts. I’m all wet, Lana. I thought of you all day,” the demon breathed in her ear.

“I don’t want you,” the brunette hissed, pushing. Mary’s back dug into the steering wheel and she let out a tight gasp, forehead falling to Lana’s. “You tried to kill me. Us,” she whispered, her grip closing around a risen skirt.

The blonde smiled. “I’m not me, I’m Mary Eunice. Your Aryan songstress. The one with the rosebud tits,” she enunciated. “Wouldn’t you want to die with me? So we could be together forever?”

Lana’s black eyes closed and she pushed a little more forcefully, trying to hold her at arm’s length. “I don’t want her either.”

“You’re lying, Lana, your heartbeat’s taken you over. Can you even feel my touch against yours or are all your nerves focusing on your throbbing clit?”

Lana’s hand clasped at the door’s handle and she threw it open, arm hanging out of the car, gaze following her fingers as she breathed in and out harshly. 

“Get out.”

Cold fingers shifted through her hair. “Oh, Paris,” Mary murmured. She pressed a kiss to Lana’s cheek, the brunette’s eyes closing. “You never were your brother.” She untangled herself from the seat and left her side, disappearing into the darkness and leaving Lana to cry, a red lipstick smudged on her cheekbone, smudged into nothingness by her knuckles and her tears.

The brunette looked up moments later, wiping at the corners of her eyes and taking a hold of herself when Kit knocked hurriedly on her fogged window. She only had seconds to compose herself but she left the car and looked up into hazel eyes, terror settled there around his irises.

She was already walking towards the house, her voice quivering dangerously. “What’s wrong?”

“She started somethin’, I don’t even know. I was out smokin’ on the porch where you left me and I heard her talkin’ Latin or Greek or somethin’ and the walls started rattlin’.”

She muttered out a curse and ran up the porch, Kit close behind her.

Mary turned, standing in the middle of the living room with her finger to her lips. The house was still, quiet, around her. Lana watched carefully, ignoring that Kit closed the door behind them, her black gaze on a light blue one. The blonde looked her over quizzically but turned back to face the wall. Lana stepped closer, wanting nothing more than to hold her, but Mary held her back.

“It’s here,” she murmured.

“You said you wouldn’t start without me,” the woman hissed back. 

“You were busy.”

Lana’s face twisted into a grimace but she bit her tongue, reaching for the bible she’d left on the coffee table, the Walker father in a corner of the kitchen.   
Mary glanced at Kit, her smile as gilded as the gold hidden behind her eyes. 

“You know who’s haunting you, don’t you. Who’s been pinching and slapping your daughter every night?”

The young man’s jaw was tight. “No.”

“Say it, Kit Walker. Say out loud who you buried out in the backyard. Tell me who died in this room and never left. Tell me who’s secret you’re keeping.”

“It was an accident,” he said. “I swear it.”

“Because who else could possibly hate a child,” Mary continued. “But the wife, the mother who didn’t give birth to it?”

Kit’s voice trembled. “Grace loved Julia.”

“Trauma leaves no peace,” the blonde snapped back.

“Mary!”

The girl’s sharp gaze turned to Lana and she bit the inside of her cheek, reigning back the demon. 

“Let’s get started,” the brunette advised firmly. Blue eyes raked over her and finally Mary nodded, taller than Lana still even though she hunched over. 

The blonde hiked her sleeves up her forearms. “I don’t speak French,” she murmured. 

“It can’t be Grace,” Kit muttered, hands to his head. “It can’t.”

“Mary’s right, and so are you,” Lana replied. “Trauma leaves no peace. It’s not her, Kit. Just her spiked feelings left on this earth. It’s not Grace. Just some memories left scattered.”

“Don’t give me that poetic shit, that’s bad enough!” he snapped back. “You don’t think I feel like shit that my wife killed my other wife? That I didn’t turn her in and that she’s raising my children? And now I’ve got my dead wife’s _ghost_ in my house? Fuck your poetry!”

“Sit down, Mr. Walker, I won’t have you here if you’ll be hysterical,” Mary warned.

The man turned his gaze on her, fury in his locked fingers, but he said nothing, fearful as much as angry though only blue eyes fixed him. 

“It’s here,” the blonde said. 

A book fell.

A low moan traveled across the kitchen floor.

“Are you watching, Lana?” Mary asked softly. “Watching that ouija board?”

“My eyes are wide open.”

The woman handed the nun the bible when she reached back for it, fingers outstretched. 

Her Latin was hesitant at first, like Mary’s had always been, but it grew in volume and power, her nails traveling down the page. Lana stood for support, as she always had, her eyes darting to and fro for solid danger, for _anything_ threatening a danger. 

She flinched when a voice whispered by her side, a voice so like Mary’s. She’d have been fooled if the blonde hadn’t been speaking other words entirely at her side, if the voice hadn’t had a twinge of an accent that just never left. 

She turned her head sideways, staring into light green eyes that shifted between her own two black ones. Grace Bertrand floated, peering curiously at her. 

“Lana, what’s wrong?” Kit asked. “What are you lookin’ at?”

“Nothing.”

“ _Help me, please_ ,” the spirit whispered. It twisted in pain when Mary finished her sentence, pausing long enough to stare at the young blonde. She turned back to Lana. “ _I’ve been framed_.”

“Lana!”

The brunette glanced at Kit, the young man scowling. 

“ _I haven’t hurt anyone. I wouldn’t hurt anyone_.”

“It’s fine, Kit, I’m just listening.”

“ _Trapped_ ,” Grace continued hurriedly. “ _Trapped I’m trapped-Tell her to stop, it hurts!_ ”

“Tell me!” Kit demanded.

Lana watched him, brows together. “Who killed you?”

He stared back, grimacing. “What?”

Mary paused, dead language on the tip of her tongue. 

“Kit,” the brunette breathed. She stepped forward, effectively pushing Mary behind her. “Who killed Grace?”

Kit’s fingers twitched, his broken gaze flitting between the women. “I-”

The front door’s handle jiggled horrifyingly, the three of them pausing long enough to glance back over their shoulders. Keys jiggled into the lock and the door slammed open, the light switch was hit, and the young man jumped back, his spine hitting the kitchen counter. 

The figure in the door was solid, feet on the floor, taller than Lana, thunder in its eyes and behind it. The woman’s voice shook dangerously with a cold fury. 

“Get out.”

“Alma,” Kit breathed out. 

His wife ignored him, stepping into her living room. She pointed to the sister and her journalist. “You two, out.”

“Ma'am,” Mary began. She walked forward, hand raising. “Please, don’t get agitated.”

“I’ll get agitated if I want to, this little séance is over. You two are fakes, you know that?” Alma continued, waving her arm towards the girl. “You stand here and talk gibberish and scare my kids and act like saints, and I’m tired of this, of watching you two gallivant around like you know what you’re doing.” She didn’t tower over the blonde but she was close. “You don’t think I noticed the missing jewelry? The missing funds? My husband might be blind but I’m far from it, and I want my home back from you two thieves.”

“Mrs. Walker,” Lana started.

“You shut your mouth, you’re nothing but two fakes! Did you know I called the church registry when Kit first told me he hired you two loonies? They only just got back to me, and surprise, they _don’t know you_.”

“That’s-”

“Get them out, Kit, they’re doing nothing but playing with your superstitions. A ghost? Are you kidding me? You know the doctor said Julia was merely hurting herself in her sleep!”

Kit turned quizzically, gazing over the two women. “Lana? Mary.” His voice fell flat, disappointment dripping into his shoulder blades.

The blonde shook her head, blue eyes wild, bible falling shut in her fingers. “Kit, no, it’s not-” 

“You, you lied to me? You stole from me?” he enunciated. “Are you kiddin’ me? This was all, all fake?” He stepped away from the counter.

“Kit,” Lana warned.

“Get out,” he breathed. “Now. Before I fetch my huntin’ rifle.” Alma’s smirk was deep, wide, and Lana looked her over as she pulled Mary behind her.

“I hope you didn’t give us your real names,” the black woman hissed. “I _will_ have your asses in court.” Beside her, Kit couldn’t face them, his hands balled into fists. Angry tears threatened the corners of his eyes.

“Kit-” The girl turned. “Lana, we’ll lose Grace-”

“Mary, come on,” Lana muttered. She tugged on the blonde. “Come _on_!” 

The blonde followed haggardly, a little lost. 

Alma sneered. “That’s it, Paris, run with your tail between your legs.”

Lana’s hand fell limp to her side and she turned slowly, gaze narrowed. “What did you say?”

“Lana, no, please,” the girl begged. 

The brunette began to scowl in disbelief. “It’s her.”

“Lana-”

“She’s possessed,” the woman continued. “Her eyes-”

She fell back with the blow she was given, a right hook to her jaw.   
The back of her eyes exploded in stars when she hit the floor, Alma above her and snapping her jaws near her throat, Mary’s high pitched screams matching Kit’s yells. 

Lana yelped out when teeth sank into her skin and she tried pushing the woman off as best as possible, but the creature wasn’t budging, in too deep. Nails raked at her ribs, tearing clothes in ribbons as they grew in size and width and Lana could only gasp as the thing drew blood. 

She was counting the seconds, though she couldn’t remember how long it took for a body to bleed itself out.

She should have known.

Kit was suddenly yanking his wife off, hand around the scruff of her neck, Lana’s own fingers wrapping around her throat, red wetting her palms.   
But Alma turned on him, ripping at the fresh bandages until they weren’t fresh anymore, bleeding again through the white patches. 

She was thrown off, Grace shimmering in between the fabrics of space, and Kit rolled onto her, trying his best to hold her down with his knees on her shoulders. He looked back, wide eyes searching for Mary.

“ _The bible_!”

The girl stared back, blue eyes so lost, and it was Lana who pushed the holy book towards the blonde, the tips of her fingers turning the pages crimson as her black gaze swam. She fell onto her back, breathing out harshly and with blood bubbling out her wound in a sickening sound.

“Mary-”

The blonde knelt by the brunette’s side, hands shaking as Alma spit venom from the back of her throat, Kit’s hair singeing at the edges. “I  can’t, I can’t do this-”

The woman bared her teeth and she shoved the girl forward. “I’m right here-”. 

The girl looked down, the brunette pressing her rosary into her fist, free hand pressing against her neck as she thrashed lightly with coming shock. 

She stood and fell back immediately, Kit slamming into her as he flew off Alma. She scrambled out from under him, the boy groaning out and unable to raise.   
The demon rose triumphant, eyes the same gold as what Mary saw in the mirror in the morning and the girl flinched before the creature now cackling wildly from the back of its throats, yowls like a jackal. 

Lana’s eyes were rolling into the back of her head, her mouth counting silently, arms shaking up to her elbows. 

Mary flipped through the bible shakily, unconsciously finding the pages she needed and beginning to speak the words in a language dead to them all but for the creature inside her and inside the woman in front of her. Alma grabbed the book out from under her nose, ripping paper out by chunks with jaw and claw and Mary was pushed back until her spine hit the wall. 

Alma hovered above her, as if sniffing her out, nose to her ear, growling so low the girl thought it was her own lungs rattling. 

“What now, Helen? What now, Roxanne? Will you cry and cry and cry like your forebearers?” 

“S-s-”

“Stop? Stop stop stop!” Alma sniveled for her. She pushed the girl into the wall a little harder. “I belong to Hell, you’re only a vassal. When your mortal body is shattered and  your piece of Satan, whatever piece took interest in a little, cowardly, girl, is brought back to Hell, then I’ll stop.” She leaned in to whisper. “I’m a fetcher and I will fetch your heart back to Osiris’s side.”

“My heart is mine own-!”

Alma cut her sentence short, hand digging into her throat. “It hasn’t been,” she hissed.

The creature drew back, jaws opening wide and saliva linking the canines together,

But Mary pushed forward, bloody rosary before in the between of her fingers now pressed tight to Alma’s forehead. 

The devil’s wife screamed out and the blonde took her weakness to switch their positions, taller than before in how she kept Alma against the wall now, in how she began reciting the passages she knew by heart, Latin spewing from both their lips, fighting each other in spits and sweet words. 

Alma screamed and tore at skin and clothes as her head began to burn, her phrases hiccuping. The palm of Mary’s hand smoked too, edges turning red and bloody with unseen flames and cauterizing over but her words were strong, the gold flowing like the Acheron in her eyes. 

“ _I banish you to Hell!_ ”

The woman’s head flung back, her throat throwing out gasps and groans and moans that had even Lana, comatose on the floor, flinching. 

Kit’s wife fell to the floor in a heap, gold flittering off of fingertips,

And Mary followed her down.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanoned with and beta-ed by graceonce
> 
> Music: Religion by Lana Del Rey

“And yer sure that’s all that went on, huh?”

Lana glanced upwards, eyebrows in a tight frown. Her gaze flitted back to her lap, her fingers black with blood. “Yeah.”

The cop watched her from beneath the brim of his hat, pen tapping against his spiral notebook, but she didn’t flinch. He finally clicked the thing and stuffed it back into his blazer’s front pocket, pad following soon after. “If you say so. You sure you say so? This is yer last chance to complain ‘bout something.”

She shrugged lightly, minutely, movement so small he almost missed it.

He grunted. “You do whatever you want, then.” He glanced back over his shoulder, eyeing the blonde on the other end of the living room, the kitchen.“You ladies are bizarre,” he muttered.

Lana watched him amble away, scowl hardening. She turned her head to follow him out the house, blue and red lights flashing outside, but the bandage around her neck prevented her from doing so. It’d been shock that had knocked her out and not blood loss, the demon hadn’t bit far enough for that. 

She had refused to go to the hospital. 

Instead she fixed the stains on the floor, her dark blood mixing with Grace’s in the rug, her fingers flexing against her still knee.

Mary’s was shifting impossibly, she could see from where she was, gauze around the girl’s hand clutching the bible to her heart, baby blues locked on her shoes, untied. 

The brunette was moving towards her, heel stepping into coagulated red and trailing across the wooden floors, until she was kneeling before the blonde and grasping at her shoelaces, dark enough that she wasn’t imprinting them with her life.

She took her time, forehead falling to the inside of Mary’s thigh as she breathed out and let her fingers flick and loop. She would have lied if she said she wasn’t purposefully untying them over and over again just to feel the girl’s fingers fall to her hair and sift through her locks. 

Kit, bruises to his temples and his back bent at an odd angle, sat on a kitchen stool not far off, head to a faded breast, Grace shifting her hand through his own chestnut curls. 

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured. “I’’m so sorry.”

Her ghost lifted his head. “ _I was trying to protect Julia from her, I swear to you_.”

“I know.” He swallowed heavily. “Thank you.”

“ _I love you, Kit_.”

“I love you too,” he replied, defeated. His gaze fell and his head followed and she pressed a kiss to his forehead before disappearing into the outside night.

Lana faced Mary, black melting into blue. “Let’s take you home.”

The girl slept for a long time, Lana at her side and sometimes not, and when not she stood at her window, facing the sun as she drank bitter coffee. When the blonde was awake, she was bright-eyed and cheerful but constantly yawning, as if she’d never really slept, but Lana knew someone else had simply slept for her then.

The brunette’d taken to sleeping outside the duvet, Mary unable and unwilling to let her sleep anywhere but in her own bed, and she’d taken to sleeping inside her covers when it became cold at dawn. She watched Mary breathe almost obsessively, big gulps of air through clean lungs that days, hours, before had been stunted and through collapsed organs. She flirted with the girl’s skin, placing the palm of her hand flat on her rising back. 

When Lana woke Mary was gone, her place just warm enough to suggest she’d slept at the brunette’s side in her dreams, and the journalist was quick in scrambling off the mattress and into her main room, the apartment too small for her to truly run.

Mary gazed up, blue eyes filled with mirth, and Lana pulled her shirt down her side, suddenly self-conscious. 

“Where are you going?” she breathed.

The girl smiled. “I’m just coming back, actually.”

“Where’d you go?”

Mary’s eyebrows raised excitedly as she lifted her hand, a bakery box in her fingers. “Breakfast for breakfast?”

Lana softened, finally breaking into her own smile and her fists unfurling at her sides. She rubbed at the raised skin on her neck, four little puncture marks and their trails. “I still don’t have a table.”

The blonde shrugged good-naturedly, grin widening. “Like children, Lana.” She sat against the counter, legs crossed at her ankles and skirts tugged down past her knee, and Lana mirrored her beneath the window. 

A pain au chocolat was thrown to her and she caught it easily, the treat warm through the paper bag.

“I hate to ask,” Mary began, but she paused to take a bite, eyes closing in a light bliss Lana hadn’t truly seen in a long time. A light, free, bliss. Her blue eyes opened, sheepish, and she brushed a crumb away from the side of her mouth. “How long did I sleep?”

“Three days, or so. I didn’t really count. I brought you home from Kit’s and you were out like a light.”

“Did you eat at all? Sleep at all?”

The brunette shrugged and Mary sighed, but it was far from out of annoyance, more so from caring disappointment. The woman smiled softly, shaking her head as she looked away, and Mary sat up.

“Why are you grinning like that?”

“You just-” Lana’s pen had found its way out of her pant pocket and into her hand and she was clicking it relentlessly. “You look good.”

Mary’s blush was bright. “Lana.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do,” the girl breathed. “I feel good, if I may say so. I feel rested. I feel,” she fingered her pain, breaking into a small smile, “Warm.”

“It’s gone, then,” Lana whispered. “Truly?”

“I feel free, Lana. Whatever weight I had on my shoulders all these months, it’s gone. I can breathe again, I can think again, and maybe,” her blush grew, “I can feel again.” She sobered slowly, a light frown dotting her features. “I don’t know what happened Lana, please don’t ask me, but I’m glad it did.”

“You simply exorcised it out,” the brunette said. Her gaze fell. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to do anything for you, as I had promised I would.”

“Don’t go there, please,” Mary pleaded. “I don’t want you going there. You kept me alive, Lana.”

Lana shook her head but had nothing to say, and she ate silently instead.

But the blonde was squirming, shifting as she folded her paper napkin cleanly and placed it into her empty bag. “Are you going to write it, then?”

“Write?”

“Are you going to write this case?” Mary prompted, glancing up. “And finish your contract?”

“I…” Lana reached for her notepad, pulling it out from her jacket hanging dangerously off the window’s sill. She played with the edges of the pages, furling and curling the paper corners. “I was going to keep your story out, Mary. Our story.”

“No,” the girl said softly. “Put it in.”

“Mary?”

“People should know, shouldn’t they? That no one is safe, not even a wife of God? Know of the struggle we went through?” The girl laughed lightly. “Maybe that’s your downtown miracle. Me.”

Lana scowled. “I wouldn’t take you as one.”

“No, but it’s there. Write, Lana, write, and take your fame. That apartment. Don’t you deserve it?”

The woman watched her, unsure. “What about you?”

“Timothy will read your last papers, I’m sure, but I don’t care. I’m cleansed now, in control if not blessed, and that’s all that matters. And surely you wouldn’t close your door to me if I came around?” she asked sheepishly.

Lana scoffed. “I fully intend on having you live with me and out of that dreary dormitory.” She softened. “Are you sure?”

Mary smiled. “You were hired to seek and speak the truth, you’d only be doing what you were asked to do. And I wouldn’t want anyone else writing my story. We’re alright, Lana.”

And Lana believed her.

The blonde’s smile faded but she pushed it back onto her face, shaking her head when the woman looked to her questioningly, waiting. She swallowed heavily. “I just can’t really believe you’re finishing up a year with me. It’s crazy, isn’t it?”

“I’m not leaving you,” Lana said.

“You have nothing to stay here for.”

“I do.”

“You’re done, so why stay?” Mary continued. “You have a life waiting in New York, or L.A., or-”

She stopped, glancing up wide-eyed when Lana crawled to kneel in front of her, a black gaze searching her own blue eyes. 

“I love you,” Lana finally blurted out.

“You love me?” she echoed, disbelief tainting her voice. She closed her eyes. “Even now? After all this?”

“Love isn’t a state of perfect caring.”

The blonde shook her head, biting her lower lip hard and not daring to look up.

“To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is right here and now,” Lana continued. 

Mary wiped at her eyes, laughing lightly. “Isn’t that a Mr. Rogers quote?”

The woman smiled. “I watch it sometimes, he’s charmingly calming, and always right.” She sobered. “I mean it, Mary. I need nothing from you, I never did. I want nothing else than to be beside you for the rest of my life, in that state of imperfect caring.” She shifted, knees smarting on the floor. “If you’ll have me.”

“That sounds like a marriage proposal,” the blonde said, hiding a grin behind her hand. Lana scowled, suddenly vulnerable and searching for words. She began to stammer but Mary hushed her, smiling now. “Lana.”

The brunette glanced at her, wringing her hands together.

“I wouldn’t want anything else,” the girl murmured. “But how can you be so sure?”

“You delight me,” Lana assured her.  She glanced back at her notes left on the floor. “I’ll have this written for Friday.”

The blonde nodded and she upturned her lips when the woman kissed her lightly, fingers at the base of her neck. She hummed when the woman pulled away to press another kiss to her hair, her fingers finding Lana’s, scar on the palm of her hand rubbing against pristine, unmarred, skin.

“What’s your secret, Miss McKee?” Lana murmured.

“Secret, Ms. Winters?” The blonde laughed lightly before smiling, her dimples deep beneath her bright blue eyes, gold but a forgotten whisper in the air. “I’m just a simple nun.”


End file.
